Benjamin Dimmitt in conversation with Susan Cerulean w/ An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands

Don’t miss out on Benjamin Dimmitt in conversation with Susan Cerulean for his latest release, An Unflinching Look: Elegy for Wetlands!

About the Book:

An Unflinching Look is an examination of a unique North American ecosystem in decline, investigated through eighty-five duotone photographs, scientific analysis, and critical interpretation. The project’s focus is the area of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s Gulf Coast and the history and fate of its wetlands.

Dimmitt began photographing in the salt-damaged sawgrass savannas and spring creeks there as a way of examining and reckoning with the ecosystem loss and of understanding what was becoming of his native Florida. He narrowed his focus to a small, remote area that he knows well and loves. Dimmitt’s intention in bearing witness to this loss has been to portray the ruined landscape with respect and beauty. To document the progress of the saltwater intrusion, Dimmitt has rephotographed landscapes that he first photographed more than forty years ago. His photographs reveal the impact of several factors that are causing the loss of an entire ecosystem: rising sea levels caused by global warming, excessive pumping from the underground aquifer, and the contamination of limited natural resources.

About Benjamin Dimmitt:

Benjamin Dimmitt is a photographic artist and educator. He is the son of a native Floridian and an artist from New York. A graduate of Eckerd College, Dimmitt was born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. He continued his studies at the International Center of Photography in New York City and taught there for twelve years. His photographs have been exhibited in museums, galleries, and festivals internationally and are held in multiple major museums and private collections.

About Susan Cerulean:

Writer, naturalist, and advocate Susan Cerulean has lived on and listened to the northern Gulf of Mexico and its wild birds and islands since 1981. She has published three award-winning works of nonfiction with the University Press of Georgia: I Have Been Assigned the Single Bird: A Daughter’s Memoir (2019); Coming to Pass: Florida’s Coastal Islands in a Gulf of Change (2015), and Tracking Desire: A Journey after Swallow-tailed Kites.

As an activist and a speaker, she has traveled from Standing Rock Reservation to Key West.