Seth
Cook

Closer to the Sun

Closer to the Sun is an ongoing photographic project reflecting the intertwined beauty and corrosion of southern Louisiana's petrochemical landscape. Drawn from the myth of Icarus, a story about untethered ambition and its consequences, this body of work reflects a region where industrial progress and environmental vulnerability have become inseparable. Oil production and chemical manufacturing have long defined the region's economy, even as their byproducts pollute its air, soil, and water. Amid ongoing expansion across the Gulf South, these forces continue to reshape the terrain and the lives built upon it.

Through the Chromoskedasic Sabattier process, each photograph transforms into a luminous surface of bronze, gold, green, and violet tones reminiscent of oil-slicked water. These altered photographs reimagine the landscape as both evidence and reflection, revealing how industry reshapes not only the land but the very image of the South itself. Closer to the Sun reflects on what remains when land is both resource and ruin, when beauty itself carries the trace of contamination, and where ambition is chosen over responsibility.