Who are you?
I am nature.
I am nature stems from the studies of a photographer and a journalist into the connection between man and culture. More specifically, it is a photographic study that intends to understand the organic relationship between wild nature and the Australian man; it is in the middle of the forest, in the desert and in the ocean that Australian men recognize and relate to what it means to be human. In a discussion that brings together intuition, the forces of nature and the essence of being human, I am nature addresses the question that science is unable to: why are Australians so strongly shaped by their relationship with nature?
Through mixing portraits with Australian landscape, I am nature seeks to find each subject’s identity in nature. With each individual personality in mind, the pair sought to understand the place that each one has amongst the vast diversity of wild Australia.
The project began in Perth, Australia where eight Australian men with varying characteristics were photographed, After studying each man and deconstructing personalities, the pair embarked on a 5000km journey throughout Western Australia. On the way, the landscape shifts from ocean to desert to vast forest. The journey was made with one aim: to be immersed in the same natural environment that these seven Australian men live in and understand the way they relate to nature. “You become what you feel”, is a known sentence from Buddha. And for these men, they are nature.