A psychology major turned photographer and educator, John Hirsch urges viewers of his work to probe and reflect on the ideas of community, recreation, and land use in America.

A series of his images, And Again: Photographs from the Harvard Forest, is featured at the Griffin Museum at Digital Silver Imaging, 9 Brighton St., Belmont, MA, January 18 through March 24. A reception with the artist is February 21, 6-8 p.m.

The subject of his photographs is a research forest that has been owned and operated by Harvard University since 1907.

“The forest offers a place where times passage is more consciously studied than almost anywhere else on the planet,” Hirsch says. “A place where technology and nature are so viscerally and overtly entwined that cables and wires emerge from the ground and descend from the sky, where trees are wrapped in plastic and metal, and the growth and movements of all things are tracked with unending precision.”

Hirsch says that like the work scientists do in the forest, his images “seek to find a balance between description and intervention.”
He adds, “This work is about a desire to understand, describe, and predict the evolutions of our surroundings while showing reverence for the sublime moments in a place.”

Hirsch, of Roslindale, MA, received a certificate in photography from the Maine Photographic Workshop in 2002. He has taught workshops in Maine and Boston and is now teaching photography at Noble & Greenough School in Dedham, MA.

The Griffin satellite gallery, which had been at 4 Clarendon St. in Boston’s South End, has moved back to its renovated and expanded space in Belmont.