These are images made from within giant redwoods and sequoias. The
redwoods and sequoias have over their long lives been recurrently
struck by lightning, eventually carving out their hard central
cores. These mammoth trees, some up to five thousand years old,
though hollow, remain alive. I have been photographing from within
these trees using the openings as apertures, framing the sky. These
works are not meant to be a photographic description or
documentation, but instead to act as a catalyst designed to
function as a portal from a recognizable world to something
original and unexpected.
Publisher of the monograph, Forest - Photographs of Stuart Rome
Signs and Wonders. Photographs by Stuart Rome. Southeast Museum of
Photography, 2011. 56 pp., 39 four-color illustrations, 10x10".
Publisher's Description Signs and Wonders is a vertical transect
through time and through the natural world. Stuart Rome's images
condense, flatten and compress the multitude of subtle time
signatures that are present in a landscape to construct a complex
language of referents and conjunctions. It is evident when we stop
and examine these photographs, that beyond these closely observed
details from the landscape, there emerges a portrait of the land as
a living canvas of marks, gestures and symbols; teeming with an
energy and regenerative vitality that is constantly in a state of
flux and renewal.
Short documentary by John Thornton, music by Sarah Rome
description of Oculus works purchased for permanent collection
Farewell lecture defining my past 40 years photographing