The photographs in this series use landscape imagery appropriated from an extensive archive of early 20th century negatives that I acquired while working as artist in residence at the San Francisco dump. Many of the negatives depict scenes from our National Parks, as well as numerous other locations throughout the American West. These negatives have a nitrocellulose base (a medium used between 1889-1930s, but replaced in the 1920s by Kodak “Safety Film” because of its proclivity to decay and self-combust). Due to the unstable nature of this film, the negatives exist in various stages of deterioration and distress. Many have melted and discolored, which has created color in these otherwise monochromatic images. I've used a flatbed scanner and sunlight as a backlighting source to record both the photographic information and the surface of the negatives. Depending on the quality of the sunlight (diffused or direct), I capture different interpretations of each negative. I build each image out of these different scans to create a composite that portrays an image of the place that was photographed as well as the degradation of the film medium.