s. gayle stevens

Photographer
Nidification: The Art of Build
Location: Downers Grove, Illinois
Biography:   S. Gayle Stevens is an award-winning photographer and exhibits extensively nationally and internationally. She has worked in antiquarian photographic processes for over twenty years; her chosen medium is wet plate collodion for its fluidity... MORE
Public Story
Nidification: The Art of Build
Copyright s. gayle stevens 2024
Updated Aug 2015
Topics Architecture, Black and White, Environment, Fine Art, Portraiture, wet plate collodion photography

Nidification: the Art of Building a Nest

The love of nature and quiet walks came to me early, for as a child I walked the woods with my father. Slow walks bestow deep thought and inspiration to those who are open. Everyday walks provide me with solace, meditation, and discovery.

Over the past seven years on my solitary winter walks I have collected over one hundred abandoned bird nests, their service completed but their artistry intact.

We relate in word and song to nests as home. We share a cozy little nest, feather our nests, and then become empty nesters. Built for protection of their young, bird nests are abandoned the following year.

I am drawn to capturing the intricacy of their structure. Differing in construction techniques and materials, bird nests are built largely with organic material, though inorganic material is used as well; birds are natural recyclers. It is this structure that is fascinating; many of the nests are woven, some almost knitted into branches of trees. With the passage of time, the underlying architecture appears as a delicate and intricate drawing. The layers of meaning I associate with nests emphasize the art and architecture over the classification.

Nature has been the subject of photographic essays since its inception. Anna Atkins the first woman photographer had the first privately published photography book, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions and William Henry Fox Talbot's The Pencil of Nature was the first commercially illustrated book. My current project "Nidification: The art of Building a Nest" consists of two hundred handmade wet plate tintypes, two images of each nest showing the nest in its entirety and a closer detail of it's construction. The handcrafted nature of historical processes echoes the birds' construction and creates a worthy interpretation of the simple beauty of their nests.

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