Annie Claflin

MAINE Landscape

These images explore my lifelong relationship with the fragile landscape surrounding my family’s summer home. Thirty-five years ago, my parents built our beach house on the Maine coastline. My father planted dune grass to anchor the sand but I have watched the tides rise yearly as they beat the dune grass and erode the shoreline. On some unpredictable day, the sea will claim my family’s home.

Ten years ago, I acknowledged our house’s impermanence and began photographing the surrounding terrain feverishly to immortalize it. My photographs protect this place. I fight its inevitable demise with each and every exploration of its geography. I create symbols of permanence out of the land and sometimes I use my shadow to embed myself in it. These images are a tribute to a place that holds my identity. As long as this land continues to exist, I will continue to illustrate the remains of its life.

Biography

Annie was born on Friday October the 13th, 1978 in Brookline Massachusetts. She, and almost every member of her family, was preoccupied with photography in the 80s. At a young age she asked for a camera for her birthday. Combining her mother’s need to document every moment and her grandmother’s interest in regarding her surroundings, Annie developed her own style. Documenting aspects of her home life and school life as well as family events and vacations, it was immediately apparent that Annie’s photographs concentrated on space and time more than people.

Annie began to seriously pursue photography after high school. She began working with other photographers, graduated from New England School of Photography in 2001 and then graduated Massachusetts College of Art in 2005. She then worked as a color printer at Spectrum Select Imaging in Boston until it closed in 2006.

Currently, Annie freelances as a photographer, a photo printer and an assistant to other artists. Her images still concentrate on places and their effects on identity. Specifically, Annie is working on a project featuring her family’s home in Maine. She also travels often, contrasting her images of unfamiliar landscapes with those of the Northeast. Boston Massachusetts is still Annie’s home today.

 

http://www.annieclaflin.com/