Reflective Forest I

Foster's "Reflective Forest" series is inspired by the ways in which the ocean and ecological world can often be a much more accurate mirror of our souls, and inner world, than the artificial mirrors we create. Foster has noticed in his daily immersions into kelp communities, that what he is feeling inside himself, often can be mirrored by what he is encountering in the dynamic world of the ocean. As in his other photographic series entitled “When the world looks Back” Foster explores deeper into the ways in which we could attempt to be seen in and of the world. The diffracted forest seems to resonate with Sufi mystic and poet Rumi, who said: “In the body of the world, they say there is a soul, well you are that soul, in the worlds body, yet again we have ways in each other that will never be said by anyone”. If we are of the world, we are also the world looking at itself, through each other.

The images in "Reflective Forest" reveal how the kelp forest, a central keystone species in a rich marine ecosystems, has a fluid dynamic capacity to move towards the light, but also survive extreme cold, wild tumultuous currents and waves, and create a confluence for many ecological communities, including recent human communities who have found a new love for immersing themselves and exploring the cold kelp forests. The images show a convergence of various elements – light and shadow, tree and sky, land and water. In a time marked by separation and fragmentation, Foster's series encourages us to reflect, diffract and see worlds meeting, and reflecting through and with each other.