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Overview
Inaugural Winner The Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography
A startling, mesmerizing series of photographs of prairie fires, On Fire transports us from moments of almost apocalyptic splendor to the stillness of near abstraction. For over a decade Kansas-based photographer Larry Schwarm has been making extraordinary color photographs of the dramatic prairie fires that sweep across the vast grasslands of his native state each spring. Based on this stunning and extensive body of work, Schwarm was chosen from over 500 submissions as the inaugural winner of the CDS/Honickman Foundation First Book Prize in Photography. With publication of On Fire, Duke University Press, in association with the Center for Documentary Studies and The Honickman Foundation, launches this major biennial book prize for American photographers.
Fire is an essential element of the ecosystem. Every spring, the expanses of tallgrass prairie in the Flint Hills of east-central Kansas undergo controlled burning. For photographer Larry Schwarm, documenting these fires has become a passion. He captures the essence of the fires and their distinct personalities—ranging from calm and lyrical to angry and raging. His photos allow us to see the redemptive power of fire and to remove ourselves from its tragic elements. Through Schwarm’s lens, the horizon takes on new meaning as we view the sublime, mystical, and sensual character of the burning landscape. Schwarm connects the enormous power and devastation of fire to what can only be identified as another kind of creation—the creation of beauty.
Published by Duke University Press in association with Lyndhurst Books of the Center for Documentary Studies
To view images from the book, please visit http://cds.aas.duke.edu/books/fire.html
The Center for Documentary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize in Photography is open to American photographers who use their cameras for creative exploration, whether it be of places, people, or communities; of the natural or social world; of beauty at large or the lack of it; of objective or subjective realities. Information and guidelines about the prize are available at http://cds.aas.duke.edu/grants
Published by Duke University Press in association with Lyndhurst Books of the Center for Documentary Studies
Synopsis
Robert Adams’ choice for the first winner in a new photography book prize - stunning images of prairie fires.
Library Journal
Its pages radiant with crackling sparks, searing flames, pinkish dawns, and indigo twilights, On Fire offers a captivating photo-documentary of the prairie fires that regularly surge across America's largest tallgrass prairie, the Flint Hills of Kansas. Schwarm (art, Emporia State Univ.) took thousands of photographs between 1990 and 2002, 70 of which were selected by the Center for Documentary Studies and the Honickman Foundation to form this book, the inaugural volume of the biennial First Book Prize in Photography competition. The power of Schwarm's work derives from the iconographic import of its subject-fire-and also from the abstract potential of each composition. The photos make a distant, largely visual experience more immediate, tactile, and, in the case of the photos of smoke plumes, even olfactory. Competition judge and landscape photographer Robert Adams composed the book's poetic and incisive foreword. Schwarm's afterword offers a glimpse of his intent, the significance of his subject, and his artistic inspirations. Recommended for all collections focusing on studio arts and photography.-Savannah Schroll, formerly with Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From the Publisher
"Larry Schwarm’s photographs of fire on the prairie are so compelling that I cannot imagine any later photographer trying to do better. His pictures convince us that seemingly far away events are close by, relevant to any serious person’s life.The photographer engages our attention first by heightening our amazement at the sensuality of fire. Most of us have enjoyed looking into a fireplace, but few of us have observed as well as he has the astonishing shapes and colors and fluidity of fire. He is so skilled in recording its appearance that occasionally we almost hear the burning and feel the warmth."—Robert Adams