“Distribution” is a sweeping photographic project born from a deceptively straightforward inquiry: how does one photograph a forest?
What began as a simple question led Daniel Shea into a complex exploration of representation. Forests, he discovered, are not just landscapes—they are systems that defy the camera’s tendency to isolate and fragment. Capturing the totality of an experience, the immersion of being in nature, demanded more than traditional visual strategies.
Over several years, Shea developed a disciplined, often counterintuitive approach to image-making. He used long lenses to flatten and compress dense woodlands, and photographed urban scenes solely through the windows of moving vehicles. These methods were not arbitrary; they served to emphasize what lies beyond the edge of the frame—ecological entanglements, structural influences, and the social dynamics embedded in the built environment.
The book that emerged, titled Distribution, navigates the uneasy space between saturation and clarity—between the overwhelming density of information and the quiet order that appears through repetition and form.
It begins intimately, with portraits of Jessica, a woman chosen for embodying the statistical median American. From there, the perspective gradually shifts: to surfaces, infrastructures, trees, and collectives of people. Through this progression, Distribution poses an essential question: how do we recognize patterns and assign meaning in a world marked by both compression and dispersal?
A short story by Catherine Lacey accompanies the work, adding a literary counterpoint to the book’s visual and conceptual layers.