A metaphor for Summer 2017

Amateur photographer Kristi McCluer took what will probably be one of the most iconic photos of 2017 of the wildfires in the Pacific Northwest.

“I don’t golf at all,” Kristi McCluer said over the phone on Thursday morning. Instead, she said, “I have spent a great part of my life in the Columbia River Gorge, hiking.”

So when the Eagle Creek fire began, she decided she needed to see it for herself.

“I was actually going to drive up to the Bridge of the Gods,” McCluer said. But she saw a parking lot and decided to pull in. After being told she couldn’t park there because it was actually a road, she found a real parking lot that was nearly empty.

“Around the corner was this golf course,” she said, “and you could see the fire.”

So she started snapping pictures.

I was amazed to discover that it wasn’t Photoshopped. For a similar metaphorical punch, see also Theunis Wessels mowing his lawn in Alberta, Canada while a tornado spins in the background (photo by Cecilia Wessels).

2017: this is fine. (via @mccanner)

• Cecilia Wessels
• Kristi McCluer
• photography
• Theunis Wessels
• this is a metaphor for something