As a Seattle native, the photographer Eirik Johnson has been a life-long witness to the detrimental environmental effects of the logging and fishing industries in the Pacific Northwest. Sawdust Mountain, Johnson’s collection of photographs published by Aperture, is a simple, honest, and melancholy book which looks at the precariously intertwined relationships between these industries, the people who rely on them, and the way in which such machinations affect the natural world.
     Sawdust Mountain makes painfully clear the fragility of these industries’ dependence on natural resources while also evoking a sense of nostalgia for a fast-disappearing way of life. Viewed as a whole, the collection of photographs unveils the devastating uncertainty of the region’s future. Ultimately, these pictures make clear that fishing and logging are, at best, perilously sustainable. In this way, although Sawdust Mountain focuses on the Pacific Northwest, it speaks to global environmental issues.

Sawdust Mountain is on view through June 10 at Aperture Gallery in New York; the book is available at aperture.org.