“During the time I was photographing the aftermath of the 2020 Cameron Peak Fire,” Wylie said, “massive forest fires were burning in California and Oregon. Often the air quality in Colorado (more than 1,000 miles from the fires) was dangerous to health, and visibility was greatly reduced. This apocalyptic atmosphere added to the feeling that this landscape represented something final, the state of things to come.
“I was intrigued by how this curving trunk, as a lyrical occurrence, works to emphasize the bleakness and desolation.
Wylie’s work – some of which is collected in his six books of photographs, the first two depicting the Cache la Poudre River – “has always dealt with the changing landscape,” he said, “more often changed by humans via the built environment.”
“I wondered if I could find any solace or ‘beauty’ in the devastation while still addressing the scale of the tragedy,” he said.