“Art is incredible not for itself, but in changing the artist’s relation to other things. . . perspective.”

– Walter Inglis Anderson 

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Soft light washes over marsh grasses as the sun crests the horizon. The inky black of the sea contrasts against a dead tree’s white, skeletal body resting in the salt water. Ripples and undulations of sediment are pushed and pulled by the tides, creating patterns that can only be seen from a thousand feet in the air.

This is the perspective of the Southern landscape that Ben Depp captures in his artwork. The artist has spent a decade photographing the disappearing wetlands of the Gulf South from a paraglider, seeking out the places where the land is steadily being absorbed and reclaimed by the sea. Join Depp in the sky and connect to these remote Southern wetlands as never before.

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The southernmost areas of Mississippi and Louisiana have one of the highest rates of sea level rise in the world, putting vulnerable low-lying lands—and the people who live there—in danger of disappearing beneath the waves. Depp’s work acts as a kind of memorial to our quickly vanishing terra firma—photographic documents that are equal parts beauty and loss. Depp’s work invites viewers to see changing climate from the perspective of the birds, and to consider the importance of these Southern wetlands to all manner of intertwined ecosystems.

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Much like the twentieth century artist Walter Anderson, Depp seeks out places many do not have access to or would not ordinarily venture. He captures delicate, intangible moments created by light, weather, and thousands of years of sedimentary deposits. Depp’s work also shows human interference, loss, and connection to the natural world in the forms of levees, highways, and things left behind.