• Refuge
• Houston Cofield (bio)

early this spring, at the beginning of quarantine, my wife and I had the privilege of living at my grandmother's lake house, located between Water Valley and Oxford, Mississippi. She owns about seventeen acres of pine woodland. There is another 100+ acres of property adjacent to her home that she does not own but that [End Page 24] is informally shared among her neighbors. We were able to be there just over a month, and I spent most days outside with my dogs, jogging in the woods and swimming in the spring-fed lake. My time there was like pushing a hard reset button on life and career.

All photographs were made near Brown Lake, outside Oxford, Mississippi, in April 2020.

A few weeks into our stay, I began making pictures on the land surrounding my grandmother's home. My work usually involves portraits or some sort of human presence, but making landscape pictures seemed like the most appropriate response to all of the chaos in the world and in my own life. I began to look at nature as a reprieve for myself and notice its quiet resilience.

The last year for me has been filled with devastating loss. My father was murdered, my best friend lost his younger brother to an undiagnosed heart disorder, and the coronavirus pandemic soon followed. The pictures in this series come from a moment when I was reflecting on loss and a year of grieving my father. My dad spent much of his childhood in this North Mississippi landscape, and the process of wandering alone through these woods gave me a sense of connection to him that I hadn't expected. As I look back on these pictures five months later, it is clear to me that I made them in an attempt to look at something lasting in response to the impermanence that had been the overwhelming theme of the past year.

As I walked through the forest, I noticed the various deer stands strategically positioned on hills, tucked away behind trees, or in dark spaces. Sometimes they took me by surprise, and it felt at times as if I were being watched. I began to think about the inherent danger and threat these stands posed to the wildlife that encounters them. The idea that the woods I used as a refuge could also be an inherently violent space was a striking parallel to my life.

I've been told more than once over the last year that grief comes in waves, not chapters or stages. Its timing and effects are virtually impossible to forecast or decipher. As I revisit the pictures from this short month of my life that came and went not long ago, it seems like a different lifetime altogether. I now see the pictures in this series as a testament to my own experience of grief and loss. [End Page 25]

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Memphis-based photographer houston cofield earned his MFA in photography from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has contributed to the New York Times, VICE, Wall Street Journal, and Zeit Magazin, among other publications. He is a fourth generation photographer of the American South.

• 避难所
• 休斯顿科菲尔德（生物）

今年春天初，在隔离开始时，我和我妻子有幸住在奶奶的湖边小屋，该小屋位于水谷和密西西比州牛津之间。她拥有约十七英亩的松树林。她的房屋旁边还有另外100多英亩的土地，她不拥有房屋，但[End Page 24]在邻居之间非正式地分享。我们能够在那里呆了一个多月，我大部分时间都在外面陪着狗，在树林里慢跑，在春天喂的湖里游泳。我在那里的时间就像是在生活和职业上按下硬重置按钮一样。

所有照片均于2020年4月在密西西比州牛津郊外的布朗湖附近拍摄。

在我们逗留的几周后，我开始在祖母家周围的土地上拍照。我的作品通常涉及肖像或某种人类的存在，但是制作风景照片似乎是对世界和我自己生活中所有混乱的最适当的反应。我开始将自然视作自己的安息之地，并注意到它的安静弹性。

对我来说，去年是毁灭性的损失。我的父亲被谋杀，我最好的朋友因未确诊的心脏病而失去了弟弟，随后冠状病毒大流行随之而来。本系列中的图片来自我反思损失的那一刻和悲伤的父亲一年。我父亲的童年时光大部分都在北密西西比州的风景中度过，独自在这些树林中游荡的过程给了我与他意料之外的联系感。当我五个月后回头看这些图片时，我很清楚地知道，我制作这些照片的目的是为了应对持久的无常现象，而这种无常是过去一年的压倒性主题。

当我穿过森林时，我注意到各种鹿的立场都被策略性地定位在山丘上，藏在树后或黑暗的空间中。有时候，他们让我感到惊讶，有时感觉就像是在看着我。我开始考虑这些林分对遇到它们的野生生物所固有的危险和威胁。我用作避难所的树林也可能是天生的暴力空间，这与我的生活非常相似。

在过去的一年中，我不止一次被告知，悲伤是波澜起伏的，而不是章节或阶段。它的时间安排和影响实际上是无法预测或破译的。当我回顾不久前来去去的这短短几个月的照片时，似乎一生完全不同。现在，我将该系列中的图片视为我自己的悲痛和失落经历的证明。[结束第25页]

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孟菲斯的摄影师houston cofield在芝加哥的伊利诺伊大学获得了摄影硕士学位。他曾为《纽约时报》，《 VICE》，《华尔街日报》和《时代周刊》杂志等做出过贡献。他是美国南方的第四代摄影师。