On location, there is absolute calm and stillness in the burn area of a wildfire. In May I stood atop a mountain overlooking San Marcos and Escondido in San Diego County, alone and under the moonlight, with the distant roar of flame and fire engine siren lights in the valley below. Smoke hung low over the valley, enveloping the cities in an ashy cocoon as the Cocos Fire smoldered. I set up my tripod and made images as the fire danced vertically into the air, inexorably marching forward, towards more homes.
Stuart Palley
LightBox, TIME magazine, August 8, 2014
By day, Stuart Palley ’11 runs his own photography business in Los Angeles, shooting videos and writing. As night falls, with camera in hand, he follows the flames, capturing the fierce beauty of California wildfires. He calls his photo project Terra Flamma, which he roughly translates from Latin as “earth fire.” The young alumnus is becoming famous for his fiery landscapes, which have been published by TIME, the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets.
Palley became interested in capturing these smoldering images in 2012 and took to Kickstarter in June to launch an online fundraiser that has allowed him to expand the scope of Terra Flamma.
“Covering wildfires is more than just a photo project. It’s about educating the population at large of the growth of wildfire danger and sharing the efforts of wildland firefighters who put their lives on the line. It’s also to show that these fires can be beautiful in a way that only nature could create. Despite their destructive nature, there is a surreal beauty to the fires photographed at night under long exposure,” Palley stated on his Kickstarter website.
He raised more than 260 percent of his original goal, and the project was fully funded in two weeks. “I knew there was interest, but I was totally floored by the support,” he says.
Money came in from a diverse pool of contributors, including a businessman in Canada who donated $1,000 and a retired firefighter from Iowa who gave $8,000. “Funny enough, a Kickstarter employee donated a dollar,” he says.
With the extra funding he is able to travel farther, but the physical preparation for each journey begins at his home base. He works out five or six times a week to be in shape to carry all his gear and build the endurance needed to hike over rough terrain at high altitude. He has trained with the U.S. Forest Service to earn basic wildland fire certification and has studied fire behavior extensively.
Palley realizes his work is dangerous and always puts safety first. “My number-one goal while photographing wildfires is to stay safe and stay out of the way of firefighters and once that is assured, I make photographs,” he says.
To date, he has photographed more than 25 wildfires. Most recently, his pictures were featured on The Washington Post’s In Sight blog September 19.
Maybe no one is more surprised about the trajectory of his career than Palley, who admits that he didn’t always envision a career in photography.
He grew up in Southern California, and like so many other students, was drawn to SMU by the beautiful campus and the Dallas scene. In fact, he is the first of three Palley siblings to become Mustangs. His younger brother, Rennick, earned degrees in mechanical engineering and math from SMU in 2013, and sister Lauren ’15 is a senior in the Cox School of Business. His parents, Roger B. and Marion Palley, serve as co-chairs of the Campaign Steering Committee for Los Angeles and support The Roger B. and Marion Palley Family Internship Endowment Fund. Through SMU’s Hegi Family Career Development Center, the Palley Family Fund provides grants to SMU students participating in domestic or international internships.
While photography was not his primary focus at SMU – he majored in history and finance – it was his minor, along with human rights. As a student he was associate editor of The Daily Campus and did some shooting for the Texas Tribune.
Palley uncovered his passion by first discovering what he wasn’t passionate about. After completing a finance internship, he realized photography was his future. That decision was reinforced when he took a course from Debora Hunter at SMU-in-Taos. Hunter, an associate professor of photography in Meadows School of the Arts, has been capturing images of the cultural landscape in and around Taos for more than a decade.
At SMU-in-Taos, Palley found environmental photography and calls Hunter a “great mentor.”
Still, he has no regrets about his academic path. “Even though I switched to photography, my finance and history background have been instrumental in helping me get to where I am. If I went back and did it again, I wouldn’t change much,” Palley says. “I might have taken a few more accounting classes.”
After graduating from SMU, he earned a master’s degree in photojournalism from the University of Missouri before returning to Southern California.
His complete Terra Flamma photo essay documenting the 2014 California wildfires will be displayed online, and he plans to publish a limited-edition book to give to some of his Kickstarter supporters, based on sponsorship levels.
Beyond his current project, Palley sees his future as a combination of commercial work and the environmental photography he loves. “I just want to continue on this path and expand what I am doing.”
– Leah Johnson ’15
