Fire is catastrophic, ruinous, and cataclysmic. It is known for its violence in nature. Its turbulent power shaped history filled with ashes and deaths. It is pictured as the desperate cries of the dead that echoes in the underworld. In other words, fire is equated with destruction and devastation. But there is more to fire than pain and suffering. It has a side of purity and growth. Fire symbolizes existence and it requires keen and unequivocal eyes to see this side of enchantment. Luckily, a German photographer possessed these eyes and mind. Jane Fulton Alt was able to capture the beauty of smoke and fire in her photo book, The Burn. She opened the different side of fire and how it symbolizes the stages of life and what makes life. The book encompasses the cycle of life and the spectrum of emotions a person possess. Incidentally, the photo book tells more about German history and its culture than expected of a book of life. The book is divided into three parts by poems the photographer wrote. .
The first section is "Smoke" - the beginning of the book and the beginning of life. The photos are of forests covered in smoke, smoke that can easily be mistaken as fogs for there is no fire in sight. This is the serenity of birth, the genesis of a nation, the start of something new. Smoke builds up the way lives build up. Human life starts inside the mother's womb. It is nourished to be strong and healthy, to be conceived normally and to live a life of values and morals. The innocence of the world is depicted in this first photos of the book. The world is young and all it wants is to live and rise. Humans live life to achieve dreams and aspirations. Their purpose is to leave a footprint to the next generation. But they are still in the stage of youth. They are still collecting the necessary oxygen they need to send the message while wandering around the open space before them. Harmless as it may seem it invokes the rise of a revolution.
