Renowned Aerial Photographer Alex MacLean Is Guest Curator for TCLF's Instagram Feed, August 24-28
Alex MacLean records unique, compelling, and fascinating patterns in the natural and built world through his distinct photographic approach. From sunbathers lounging along the water’s edge to B-1 bombers parked in an aircraft "boneyard," MacLean has been documenting landscapes from the air for the last 40 years. His latest project, Supply + Demand, undertaken with environmental journalist Dan Grossman, documents oil production centers in the U.S. and Canada. The photographs shed light on a “continent-spanning system that powers our lives and threatens our climate.”
MacLean’s fascination with landscapes began at an early age, during annual family vacations to the Thousand Islands region of upstate New York. As an undergraduate he became interested in aerial photography, and in documenting how the natural and constructed worlds work together. A few years after completing his M.Arch. at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, MacLean received his commercial pilot license and established Landslides Aerial Photography, a company that provides illustrative aerial photography for architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and environmentalists. MacLean’s take on his process: “For me, the art of aerial photography is the experience of piloting myself through three-dimensional space to find the perspective that brings light, atmosphere, and pattern together to make a meaningful, two-dimensional composition.”
MacLean has earned many awards, including the 2009 CORINE International Book Award and the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture from the American Academy in Rome (2003-2004). He has received grants from several organizations, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting. His work is included in private art collections and is regularly exhibited in galleries in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. MacLean has generously donated his work to TCLF’s annual Silent Auction for years and has a special image planned for 2015, which will be held during the ASLA Annual Meeting and EXPO on November 7-8 in Booth 646 of McCormick Place in Chicago.Follow TCLF and MacLean on Instagram for incredible landscape images.
