Into the fire: Stuart Palley on photographing California’s wildfires
He knew it could happen, but it still came as a shock when the bees, displaced by the fire, returned stinging. There’s really only one thing you can do under attack by a swarm: Stuart Palley dropped his camera and ran for it.
Palley, 27, whose work documenting California’s wildfires over the past two-and-a-half years has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, Time (which named one photo its ninth best of 2014) and the Washington Post to name just a few, says his camera broke but, considering the dangers, concedes it’s not the worst that could have happened.
A corporate photographer based out of Los Angeles by day — “It’s what pays the bills” — by nightfall Palley reinvents himself through a passion project documenting ravaging blazes in northern California, often pulling all-nighters that take a toll on his body in order to snap hundreds of photos. He’ll crash, sleep until noon, wake up and drive home, ad naseum.
Stunned by their presentation and complexity — his photos are a surreal blend of achingly beautiful devastation and real-time news — I was fascinated to learn what drove him to take these hard-to-come by shots and what practical risks he faced in getting them.
Their timing is dramatic. California is going through a record drought that has exacerbated the flames. Palley spends most of his efforts documenting the Valley Fire, near Middletown, Calif., about two-and half hours north of San Francisco.
The fire is the third worst in state history, according to the Los Angeles Times. Between the Valley and Butte blazes, more than 7,500 firefighters are combating fires that have consumed some 147,000 acres, killing three people and destroying more than 2,000 structures, many of them homes, in its wake.
Part viewer, part advocate, Palley hopes his work will be a hook to inform and prevent injuries.
“There’s been an interesting demand for the photos because of the drought. Shooting them is a pretty significant niche of the editorial market. There’s not many of us. It’s not like taking a photo of Donald Trump. There’s definitely demand, but I don’t make my living as a journalist. Stuff that pays the bills is corporate work,” he said.
“No photo is worth my safety — that’s the first priority. You always look for a way out. I take a radio, three days of water, spare tires, a sleeping bag and a medical kit, so that if something happens to me, I can take care of myself,” Palley said.
Photojournalism was always a calling, from working on the school yearbook to minoring in photography as an undergraduate at Southern Methodist University in Texas. After receiving a Master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Missouri, he worked as an apprentice at the Orange County Register in 2013, getting his first up-close taste of wildfires.
“I got to see wildfires in south of Orange County, where, almost immediately, I saw a $1 million house on fire and these firefighters desperately running in to try to save things. I was struck at how powerful these things were.”
Growing up he’d always been on the edge of fires — he once had to move away for a week when one threatened his home — but his experiences at the paper and a budding sense of human involvement in a natural, sometimes hostile landscape turned curiosity into a focus. The Washington Post, in an article, referred to Palley’s tendencies to seek out flames as like a “Moth to the flame”
“[With wildfires] I want to show this is what the drought is causing, this why the fire is burning.”
“The drought is a very longterm thing, slowing drying a low-key decay. So it’s a slower vantage. We’ll adapt, and here’s the silver lining: this drought is going to make us all more water responsive.”
Stylistically, Palley takes long-exposure shots, often showcasing flames in vivid detail and set to a backdrop of starlight.
The cover photo to his Terra Flamma series of the Shirley Fire burning at night near Lake Isabella, Calif. last summer, depicts a fire raging below a road snaking along a hillside. The scene is thrown into shades of blue and red. Overhead, stars glimmer almost innocently, the comforting pattern broken up by the circling streak of an airplane. The effect is surreal and otherworldly.
“I basically wanted to go and photograph fires in a different way, with an art element, to interest people in wildfires and raise awareness to help people learn. They’re not heavily photoshopped, and I’m trying to elevate journalism into art, finding surreal compositions that apply beyond journalism.”
