Author: Ronald H. Chilcote

Publisher:

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 9780984000722

This book is an activist document. The accomplished photography of a sumptuous landscape may obscure the fact that The Laguna Wilderness consists of equal parts of the three most powerful currents of nature photography over the past half century--art, political advocacy, and love of nature. Ron Chilcote deploys beauty as a political weapon. The use of photography as a preservationist tool is a tradition deeply rooted in the western United States. The opening of the West arrived in parallel with the emergence of photography. Carleton Watkins's photographs of the Yosemite Valley, for example, are widely credited with influencing Congress and President Lincoln to set it aside in 1864 as "inalienable for all time." When Chilcote and his wife first settled in Laguna Beach, California, in 1972, the hills and beaches, canyons and woodlands of the San Joaquin Hills were threatened by rapid population growth and rapacious development. To the battle against these changes Chilcote brought commitment, political involvement, and, eventually, a camera. In this book he pursues the beauty of the Laguna Wilderness not just for his own wonder but as a way of transforming these little-known wild lands into treasured places deserving preservation. The images are gorgeous--old-growth oaks in golden light, the still mirror of the Laguna Lakes, autumn mist in the canyons--but, more than this, they are intended to change things. Chilcote provides a brief history of the wilderness surrounding Laguna Beach and goes on to tell the inspiring story of the successful local effort to have it set aside as permanent open space. His work at once celebrates the beauty of wildness and serves as an example for people everywhere who see nature vanishing around them and want to do something about it.