PLEASE ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF

By MICHAEL PERKINS

ONE OF THE FIRST BENEFITS, IN THE NINETEEN CENTURY, OF THE NEW ART OF PHOTOGRAPHY, was in providing a visual connection between disparate peoples around the globe. In the age of the steamship, long before mass media had annihilated space and time, huge parts of the world were complete mysteries to other parts of it. We had literally no graphic evidence of what much of our planet, as well as the things in it, looked like. Photographs provided a revolutionary kind of connective tissue.

In our present age, we can mistakenly assume that everything has been photo-documented; labeled, archived, identified, covered by oceans of images. And yet there are gaps, vast canyons of things we do not comprehend visually. This is increasingly the case in our widening estrangement from the natural world. The data on visits to monuments, state and national parks, and other scenic wonders are impressive, until you measure them against how much of nature no one has seen, or have only experienced second-hand. This, in the twenty-first century, charges photography with what can only be called a sacred mission; to reacquaint us with the parts of our world which are thrillingly alive, but toward which we have learned to turn a blind eye.

Can’t we all just get along? Cormorants and pelicans share a California seal sanctuary, 2025.

My own journey in this regard accelerated years ago, when my love of photography was paired with a growing interest in birds, and then, in turn, was linked to an examination of how birds and their environments connected with all other living things. It sounds absurdly simple, but, the fact is that, had birds not pulled me into their world, I might never have visited the physical places where I have now also developed a sense of connection between birds and all other elements of the natural world.

This, then, is my dream for photographers in our time, an age in which public lands have already been plundered and politicized for private profit, an era in which more and more extinction and threat make documentation of our environment absolutely essential, both for our own appreciation of it in the present and as an invaluable document against the losses of the future. Our cameras are the eyes of the planet, more than at any other time in our history. Images create linkage, and the task of re-introducing ourselves to nature is beyond urgent. We cannot protect what we do not know. See, and know more.