In this disorderly, snow-clad forest, riddled with the burnt trunks of lodgepole pines, Amy saw potential.
‘By drawing people in with a beautiful abstract,’ she explains, ‘I hope they might start to think about the role natural fire plays in shaping the health of this ecosystem’. In 1988, over a third of Yellowstone National Park’s 900,000 hectares burned in the driest summer in its history. While these blackened lodgepole pines did not survive, 15 years later when this picture was taken their seeds may have flourished as a result – some of their cones only open after fire, exploiting the newly cleared forest floor where there is plenty of light.
USA
Amy strives to create photographs that help people understand the importance of the natural world. Her work has received numerous honours, and her book, Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest, is the winner of an Independent Publisher Book Award and two Nautilus Book Awards. She is a founding fellow of the International League of Conservation Photographers.
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