The Belfast Review Team | 10 March, 2024
Thanks for joining us for Week 4 of our Spring Blog. Each week we feature a handful of new creative works by artists, photographers, writers, poets, and song writers. Different days of the week highlight different creative forms: Feast Your Eyes Sundays (art, photography), Wordy Tuesday (fiction, flash, nonfiction), and Rhythm-Verse Thursday (poetry, song lyrics).
This week we're exploring the theme of 'Environment.' It's a topic that seems to be influencing a lot of work submitted to us. In our debut issue, we included a section where Nature and Magic combined in original ways to draw our attention to the plight of Mother Earth. However, for this week we're broadening the scope to include works that interrogate one's place – both in the outer world and nature, as well as the effect is has on the interior environments we inhabit and create.
Welcome to wherever you are.
Featured photographer: Clayton Joe Young
We were impressed with the epic quality of this photographer's work and also the muted desolation combined with majesty. The Earth even in its ravaged state seems to assert both its boundlessness and timelessness in the face of man-made structures and concepts. And perhaps that lends itself to the unsettling quality of these images - the element of time. Mother Nature exists on a different time scale to us as individuals and us as a species. What we have seen of Mother Earth is but a glimpse. There is so much more; and our concrete monoliths pale in comparison even as they try to dominate and subdue the landscape.
From one point of view, there is much to hope for. Or there is much to despair. Or there is much more to appreciate. Or much to regret.
It all depends on your environment.
Images of the American South through Infrared, No. 1
CLAYTON JOE YOUNG
Images of the American South through Infrared, No. 3
CLAYTON JOE YOUNG
Images of the American South through Infrared, No. 5
CLAYTON JOE YOUNG
ARTIST BIO
Clayton Joe Young is the Director and Senior Professor for the Photographic Technology Program at Catawba Valley Community College in Hickory, NC. Young is an award-winning photographer with a background in photojournalism whose work has been exhibited throughout the United States in solo and juried exhibitions. In 2014, Young earned the Certified Professional Photographers (CPP) designation from Professional Photographers of America. In May of 2015, Young earned a MFA in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Young’s thesis studied the effects of nostalgia in relation to family histories and memory. View more of his work at www.joeyoungphoto.com
Special thanks to the artist for trusting us with his work.
Thanks to all of you readers for reading! Be sure to like, follow, and share.
Check out our other posts this week:
Wordy Tuesday (12 Mar) with Nonfiction by Jonathan Lipps
Rhythm-Verse Thursday (14 Mar) with Poetry by Hiram Larew and David Harrison Horton.
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