Photo Essay | Environment
Where the River Meets Fiery Skies
Images and Words by Naomi Binzen
Smoky skies over a Southern Oregon beach (September 2020) / photo by Naomi Binzen
Over the days of September 8-9, 2020, vast swaths of the West Coast of the United States were burning under a siege of wildfires. From Northern California up through Oregon, the thick smoke of unprecedented fires, combined with coastal fog, created a stunning and uncanny phenomenon. Blood red skies cloaked the coast, infamously turning the city of San Francisco into a feverish “apocalyptic” cityscape, seen on media across the world, disorienting animals and people alike.
The following photo essay, by photographer Naomi Binzen, documents the eerie red skies up in rural Southern Oregon and along the border with her dog, the small towns and beaches meeting the Pacific Ocean drenched in a holographic hue. Of the following images, the brilliant red photos were taken just over the California border from Oregon in Gasquet, CA, along the Smith River; the coastal images range from Crescent City, CA, to Brookings and Gold Beach, OR.
- Editor Note (Clara Dudley)
Where the river meets fiery skies… vibrant crimson red cast across everything. Such a deep dark I could scarcely see my hand in front of my face when walking through the woods.
Dreamlike. No sense of time; from first light to twilight it’s all the same dim dull light, the days all melt and meld together. Salvador Dalí would make magic of this liminal space, but the limbic brain is operating in overdrive— stop! go! stop! go!... gearing up to run on a quest for survival, that force that animates all living things, and so it fails to pause long enough to bear witness to the artistic sensations suspended within.
Occupying a state of heightened awareness and engaged waiting. Hovering in a state of suspended animation. Stillness in motion.
Crickets chirping at 1:30 in the afternoon because they thought it was night. Some of the worst air quality in the world. An altered state of consciousness, existing in that realm. Heightened adrenaline, heightened awareness, marvelling at the wildness of this existence, this apocalyptic reality we've all been born into and participated in manifesting.
Here we are, staring into the event horizon. Point of no return. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.
No turning back now. No way out but through.
Thick, choking smoke. We're breathing exhalations of bodies. Tree bodies. Bodies of fur- and flesh-clad ones, winged and scaly ones. Bodies of structures that housed humans.
We’re looking our future in the face, yet we can’t quite see it through the veil, clouded by the haze, shrouded by the smoke.
That burning ember of blood-red sun pierces through our mental fog, has us sitting with the truth of death, change, impermanence.
The west is on fire. Ravaged and licked clean by that energy source that makes life possible... and can just as readily take it away.
Our planet has been incredibly patient with us for so long. It hasn't been working, so she's turned to tough love, and we're feeling her Kali wrath.
The angry, anguished beauty of wildfire. May these trying times lead to a rebirth of humanity's understanding of our intimate earth connection, a shift in our collective earth relationship. We're all in this together.
Naomi Binzen is a photographer originally from California, now based in Southern Oregon, USA. Her work focuses largely on the environment and the natural world.
She has travelled extensively. One of her images was featured in Your Shot, a weekly user-contributed column by National Geographic (27 January 2019)
Follow Naomi on Instagram @reveriewanderer
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All images and words reprinted with permission from and gratitude to Naomi