AgathaO is my photographer alter ego. She is an intrepid dame of a certain age who who roams a bog with her hound —  and tends to tumble into it in pursuit of the right shot. My photographs include detail studies, found still lifes, and emotional landscapes in which she catches nature in the act of presenting itself as the highest art, undressed and open to the gaze of the latest passer-by. Seductive, entrancing, enchanting, as much as rotting, stinky, and oozy. Almost unseemly at times.

In my work, I approach nature from below, highlighting the beauty in the rich detail that surrounds us, much of it hidden and overlooked, too small to see, or caught up in something to which we have a learned response like “yuck,” or “brrr.”  I try to do the same with my own experience of nature, expressing the feelings of joy, longing, and sensual delight that come with the seasons and the mood or smell of a particular day. Much of my current work is part of a larger project entitled, Portraits in the Carbon Cycle, the cycling and recycling of chemical elements on which life on Earth depends, built in to each living being.

I share much of my work on my website, AgathaO.com, where I also sell printed greeting cards, framed and matted prints, and small books and other products. I also exhibit and sell (often larger) work I frame in vintage frames.

Pleun Bouricius is the author and owner of AgathaO.com, a photo-blog and online shop with numerous essays and images that takes on nature, ideas, and art in equal measure. She published a collection of prose-poetry and photographs from the website, entitled The Bog, in 2017, and will be publishing another in 2019 entitled, Beech (forthcoming). She is also the principal of Swift River Press — History/Communications by Pleun Bouricius. She blogged for the Public Humanist (2008-2013); is the architect and main author of the collaborative project Hidden Walls, Hidden Mills, a series of history/ecology adventures in Plainfield, MA; authored and designed, with Dario Coletta (photography) the 2010 Barns of Plainfield calendar  for the Plainfield Historical Society; and she devised, designed, and authored an early (2001) online guide to women’s history resources at Historical Collections in Harvard Business School’s Baker Library, entitled, Women, Enterprise, and Society. She has a BA in history, women’s studies, and photography from Montclair State College, New Jersey; and a MA, in English, and PhD, in the History of American Civilization, from Harvard University.

Full Bio: https://swiftriverpress.com/about/