There are images of the earth, and then there are images by the earth.

It is the latter that has helped Madison Emond become a Fulbright Scholar. The Barrington native recently won the scholarship to pursue a photography project title "Nature as Artist: Visualizing the Personhood of the New Zealand Landscape."

Madison's work is quite unique — her images are created, in part, by nature itself.

"…all my works are made through the interaction of photosensitive materials, the natural world, and moonlight – and nothing else," she said.

Madison began exploring this type of photography while she was a student at Bard College in New York. She said she had always been drawn to landscape imagery, but felt that her photographs were not adequately communicating the connection she felt with the natural world.

"I had a creative concern: how can the natural world be my co-creator and collaborator in the work I make as opposed to solely being the subject of it?" she said. "I decided to eliminate the camera from my process and began working with the Earth directly."

Madison looked to the Saw Kill River, a small tributary of the Hudson River that runs through Bard College's campus. The former Barrington High School graduate would carry large pieces of photograph paper to the banks of the Saw Kill at night and then wade out into the water. She would hold the paper afloat on the water and let the moonlight gradually expose the paper, creating an image. In the wintertime she would follow the same process, except she would pull the paper under the ice covering the river.

She developed the photographs in trays next to the Saw Kill when the exposure was complete.

"The resulting images are objects that the river can effectively speak through directly to viewers, alerting each person to the river’s vitality, agency and creative subjectivity," she said.

Madison will pursue her Fulbright Scholarship in New Zealand conducting the same type of work. She chose New Zealand because is was one of the first countries to actually grant legal personhood to landforms — the national park Te Urewera was granted personhood in 2014, and the Whanganui River was granted this same status three years after that.

Madison said she will begin her work in New Zealand in Feb. 2021.

Long-held interest

"I have had a camera in my hands for as long as I can remember," said Madison.

But it was during the second semester of her senior year at Barrington High School that photography became more exciting.

"BHS had discontinued teaching film photography classes but still had film cameras and the photochemistry," Madison said. "My friend Sophie Faxon and I requested an independent study period in film photography with Mrs. Tucciarone.

"It was the first time I had ever developed my own film and printed in a darkroom; I totally fell in love with the process. When I arrived at Bard College I was immediately sucked into the photography program and knew within my first semester that this is the subject I care most deeply about and the field of study I want to participate in."

At Bard College, Madison decided to major in photography although she was concerned about the financial risk involved.

"I felt the need to study something practical that gave my future stability. But there was something else at stake… studying photography, for me personally, meant the beginning of a lifelong commitment to art making," she said.

"I gave into this calling and there is no going back."

Madison graduated from Bard in 2018 and is excited to begin her work in New Zealand in Feb. 2021.

"Receiving a Fulbright award to continue my work abroad is an awesome affirmation of my choices and intuition and it is a critical step in my career as an artist beyond college," she said. "I am so full of joy and am grateful to everyone who has believed in me and this work."

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is the largest U.S. exchange program offering opportunities for students and young professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and primary and secondary school teaching worldwide.

The program awards approximately 2,000 grants annually in all fields of study, and operates in more than 140 countries worldwide.

Taking photos in town

Madison said there a number of places in Barrington where she enjoys taking photographs, including at Mussachuck Beach. Madison has an ongoing project at the beach.

"This project is currently manifesting itself in the CLAMCAM: a rig of pinhole cameras made out of quahog shells that loads a full strip of 35mm film," she said. "All of the quahogs I use are collected from Mussachuck and I still return there to take images with this funky apparatus."

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