The Color of White by Tom Turner

I think of time as an interictal part of the photographic practice. Thru my video and photographic series “The Color of Memory,” I attempt to collapse our perception time and the landscape with the hopes of inspiring a bit of thought about the relationship of people to their environments. I am trying to observe the elasticity of time and color to construct a more arbitrary relationship between the two. The rearranging of color channels in multiple layered images attempts to illustrate the fracturing of our perception of color as a fixed entity and how time alters our understanding of the landscape. Misaligning the color plates within the images perform the same function as a prism when refracting white light into the component colors, creating colorful ghosting where movement occurs. “The Color of Memory” contains distinct sections, consisting of still photographs as well as both single-channel and multiple channel video installations. The fourth section, “The Color of Memory: The Color of White,” examines the shifting colors across a white landscape. The snow-covered landscape clarifies how light translates the experience of movement to the displacement of time.

“The Color of Memory: The Color of White” uses color to draw attention to the balance between land, weather, and climate. The use of multiple images captured over time allows the medium to stretch the relationships between the land and atmosphere around it. I aim to draw attention to the landscape and the beauty of the earth, hoping to effect a change in our perceptions. I believe that action begins with appreciation, and appreciation leads to stewardship.

I think of the camera as a tool to record time. The camera has the power to arrest or extend the motion of the world, changing the way we interact with our natural environments. This device that most people now carry in their pockets gives us the ability to record the present for our future selves. However, I believe that information becomes distorted through this continuous documentation. Time and accumulation of imagery misshape our understanding and memory of the world. The flood of photographs and movies compound our desensitization to grandeur. Repeated exposures to awe-inspiring landscapes stimulate a more layered experience. Generic or too often photographed landscapes allusively invoke equivalent memories in the viewer overlaying the present with the past. I aim to summon the viewer’s romanticized memory of the landscapes, as well as challenge them to understand the environments in which they live.

Tom Turner lives and works in Eagle River, Alaska.
To view more of Tom’s work, please visit his website of find him on Instagram @tomphototurner