Are pictures contaminated by the circumstances in which they are made? Can affectations of heroism be washed off their surfaces? Is redemption possible for the abused nature in stories of bravery?

For Waters, the second work in the series Spuren, I selected ten printing plates from the found material that depict nothing but the ocean. Corrosion had eaten white spots into the zinc plates, as though the chemical process sought to perform a work of historical remembrance. The sea donned a new guise, which I reproduced in digital photographs and then edited.

My aim in working with the seascapes was to develop a counter-image to the romantic-heroic argument of the historic source. My alterations have transformed the original wide format into an upright one—landscapes have become portraits of the ocean. The motifs have broken free from the historic narrative and taken on a presence in their own right.

The resulting pictures raise questions: Which inscriptions—beyond instances of visible destruction—do human interventions leave behind in nature? To which extent do photographs of ostensibly timeless landscapes convey their past and often invisible casts?