Introduction

Abstract

The introduction begins with an exploration of Carleton Watkins’s photographs of mining to establish the material links between photography and mining. Working from the premise that the mine is a precondition for photography, the chapter considers how photography reinforces and challenges extraction before analyzing photography through an ecological lens. Finally, it turns to questions of materials and materiality. Methodologically, this chapter situates photography as an ecotone, an environmental term for a zone of tension, arguing that photography’s overlapping spheres of influence and unstable boundaries make it a fruitful site for ecological thought. The theoretical framework situates cultural production in an ecocritical framework, revealing an interplay between materials, extractive and artistic labor, and histories.