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Benjamin Dimmitt

Benjamin Dimmitt was born and raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. He graduated from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, FL where he studied photography and printmaking. He also studied printmaking at Santa Reparata Graphic Arts Centre in Florence, Italy and City and Guild Arts School in London, England. Dimmitt moved to New York City in 1976 and continued his studies in photography at both the International Center of Photography in NYC, NY and Santa Fe Photographic Workshop in Santa Fe, NM.

From 2001-2013, he held an adjunct professor position at the International Center of Photography teaching black & white photography and landscape photography.

His photography investigates interdependence, competition, survival and mortality in the natural environment. He is most curious about the places where land and water merge and landscapes with animated and layered growth that exhibit the instinct for survival and the persistence of life.

Dimmitt’s photographs have been exhibited in museums, galleries and festivals internationally and are held in multiple major museums and private collections.

In December, 2024, Benjamin’s An Unflinching Look project was nominated for the eleventh cycle of the Prix Pictet. Based in London, the Prix is widely recognized as the world’s leading prize for photography and sustainability. He lives and works in Asheville, NC.

benjamindimmitt.com

Palms in Creek, 2017

The Environmental Issues

The Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge is a very fragile, spring-fed estuary on Florida’s Gulf Coast, 70 miles north of Tampa. I was overwhelmed by its lush, primaeval beauty on my first visit in 1977 and have photographed there extensively since 2004. The dense palm hammocks and hardwood forests were festooned with ferns and orchids, and the spring fed creeks were a clear azure. There are other similar estuaries nearby but the Chassahowitzka River and the surrounding wetlands are protected as part of the federal National Wildlife Refuge system and the river itself is designated by the state as an Outstanding Florida Water.

Along this part of Florida’s flat west coast, crystal clear fresh water rises up from springs inland and meanders slowly for miles through a hardwood swamp, through brackish marshes and then out into saltwater bays where it merges with the Gulf of Mexico.

Friends of mine had a simple, remote cabin on stilts 30 minutes from the boat launch ramp and just outside of the refuge boundary. I visited them often in the 1980’s and 1990’s and had my bachelor party there.

I began photographing the Chassahowitzka in earnest in the 1990’s, bringing bags of equipment in an open outboard boat. It was a beautiful and pristine subject. I had never seen any place like these wetlands.

In 2004, I began a project, Primitive Florida, photographing landscapes in Florida that I felt were vulnerable to development, rising seas and worsening storms. The Chassahowitzka was a favorite subject for the project. I lived in New York City at the time and made certain to visit the swamp whenever I was in Florida. In 2014, when my host pulled around a creek bend in his skiff, I was horrified to see miles and miles of dead and dying trees in every direction. This devastation is the result of rising sea levels caused by global warming. I hadn’t visited the swamp in 2 years and wasn’t aware that this impact of climate change had arrived at these gulf shores. In the 1970’s, I learned in college that, due to global warming, glaciers would soon begin melting, that sea levels would soon rise and that storms would worsen worldwide. I assumed, without reason, that these changes wouldn’t occur for many generations. On that day in December, 2014, I learned that the future had arrived and I began photographing the ruin around me.

Blue Run Still Life 2, 2020

Expired Palm Sapling, 2019

Early on, I made a commitment to myself to convey this story of degradation. It was difficult to witness the environmental ruin increase year after year. A primary goal for the project was to show what climate change looks like and to make it clear that it is happening now. I didn’t shy away. This is my native landscape, and I had been photographing it for decades before the inundation began. I saw the project as an elegy and a lament.
In order to fully understand what I was seeing and what I was photographing, I sent my photographs of the ruined wetlands to marine scientists working at nearby universities. They confirmed that my photographs depicted the impacts of rising seas and saltwater intrusion.

Ruined Forest, 2015

The Chassahowitzka is a rare first-magnitude spring system originating many miles inland that flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The source of the spring’s discharge is groundwater in the aquifer, which is now only partially replenished by rainfall soaking into the ground. Millions of gallons of fresh spring water are pumped from the ancient underground limestone and sprayed on lawns and fields, run through showers and flushed down toilets and used to generate electricity. What’s worse, Florida’s politicians permit private corporations to siphon millions more gallons into plastic bottles for sale as drinking water around the country. As a result, water flow emerging from the Chassahowitzka spring system has declined by more than half: from 138 cubic feet per second before 1980 to less than 61 cubic feet per second in 2017.

Secondly, the water that still bubbles out of the spring is polluted by nitrate, a plant-growth nutrient that originates mostly from fertilizers and animal and human waste deposited on the land surface or via septic tanks. Nitrate pollution fuels the growth of algae blooms which are smothering springs and the creeks they feed and putting human health at risk. These algae blooms block sunlight from entering the creeks and springs, killing all plant and animal life. What were only recently lively, clear waters have become dead zones covered over by large thick blankets of chartreuse algae.

Large Mat of Toxic Algae, 2021

Finally, the fresh water coming out of many springs is showing signs of a growing saltiness; for Chassahowitzka, the salinity is now 45 times greater than it was in 1980. Historically, fresh water flowed to the coast through spring creeks and rivers, holding in check the landward encroachment of salty Gulf waters. This balance protected upstream waters and the underground aquifer from saltwater intrusion for thousands of years. But in the past forty years, as enormous quantities of water have been pumped from the springs and aquifer, salt water has migrated landward, killing freshwater ecosystems and rendering the drinking water unusable. The problem has become compounded by rising sea levels in the Gulf. Coastal springs like the Chassahowitzka are particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise and increasing storm surges from the Gulf.

Fallen Palm & Fog, 2015

Although many arms of Florida’s government measure and attempt to protect our springs, there is no political will to mark the situation of the springs as the emergency that it is. No politician is willing to lay out to the people of Florida why the rivers and springs are dying and what must happen to change that trajectory.