Peter Cochrane

The Wild Beasts began as a way to thank my friends and mentors. I honor these relationships by making floral portraits of each person using traditional still life materials at the threshold between the manmade and natural worlds. I use a 19th century, 8x10 large format view camera to make a silver gelatin print that is gifted to the subject. This camera is the same used by early landscape photographers in the pursuit of capturing the divinity of nature, such as Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. I blend my previous experience as a florist with research into botanical, horticultural, and photographic histories. I select plants, flowers, vases, backdrops, and lighting—some of which are made in collaboration with the subject—to weave a biographical narrative. At times, specific lexicons are used, such as the Victorian Language of Flowers, while more fantastical codes are shared between us. An 8x10 negative is created from the view camera, and a positive print is developed in the darkroom to be shared only with each subject.

Every portrait is accompanied by a landscape view that further develops the character of the person. These images can take months of preparation as the season, location, time of day, and quality of light all reflect some facet of personality. In these views, we see the 8x10 camera as a surrogate for myself. I stand alongside my friend, with traces of labor scattered throughout. Footprints in the mud, a toppled backdrop, or remnants of cut stems provide traces of creation. The landscape also brings into question how photography has been used to create categories of beauty. Late 19th and early 20th-century landscape photographers disseminated thousands of images that still shape what we consider to be beautiful or ugly, right or wrong, wild or tamed. For better or for worse, photography has helped to establish what people consider to be natural or unnatural.