Snapshot: 'Our Loss'

On April 14 2018, environmentalist and LGBTQ+ rights lawyer David Buckel set himself alight in New York's Prospect Park, his self-immolation a protest against the destructive power of fossil fuels.

Later that day, Queen-born photographer Joel Sternfeld passed through the park with his son. Profoundly affected, Sternfeld returned to the site of Buckel's death over the course of a year to document its gradual regeneration. The result is Our Loss, the latest work in his ongoing exploration of the climate crisis.

The site of Buckel's horrific death appears eerily mundane in Sternfeld's cycle of images; the scorched patch of earth is almost imperceptible against the muted landscape, highlighted only by a flurry of memorial flowers, or a crowd of curious passers-by. Sternfeld documents both the hopefulness of natural renewal, made vivid in the pink hues of a cherry tree, and the ease with which the traces of Buckel's trauma fade away.