Todd Stewart | Studio

First Light, Last Day of Summer | 2008 – Present

A few years ago I made a photograph of my son playing in his grandparents backyard. The image, taken on the first day of summer vacation became part of the series, The Garden, a body of work centered on my children’s evolving relationship with the natural world and in particular the moments of discovery and revelation I observed as they each searched for their own place within it.

First Light, Last Day of Summer is an extension of these concerns. It began as an exploration of the natural areas my family and I encounter everyday -The spaces that define our knowledge of the world; the places that inform our understanding of who we are; and the landscapes that we call home. These are complex spaces, liminal spaces, that exist somewhere between our desire for Eden and our cultural fear of the unknowable. As the moments of discovery I observed in the Garden are slowly replaced by a growing awareness of this ambiguity, I know as a father that this is the space my children will soon inhabit.