Christine and John invited me to give a talk for their camera club. I gave an overview of my new book and shared a few images from it.
Proof Print of My New Book!
Photogenic Drawings
An example from my new book, “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain” pages 251-252:
“Rocky Mountain Cotton On Vellum Paper”
This image really speaks to the heart of what I’m exploring about mortality and artistic process.
The Talbotype process creates this direct indexical relationship between the object and its representation—the Rocky Mountain cotton literally left its shadow on the paper, what you might call a kind of death mask of the plant. This connects powerfully to what Becker writes about our need to leave traces of ourselves behind.
The luminous quality of the cotton head against that deep, velvety darkness reminds me of what Terror Management Theory describes as our attempts to create permanence from impermanence.
By using Talbot’s historical process, I’m not just capturing an image – I’m participating in a kind of photographic immortality project that spans nearly two centuries. The plant’s physical contact with the paper creates what we might call a “presence of absence.”
What fascinates me most is how this process makes visible something I’m deeply exploring in this book – the way artists transform ephemeral moments into lasting artifacts. The cotton’s delicate structure, rendered in this ghostly white against the dark ground, becomes both a document of its physical existence and a meditation on its transcendence through art.
The fact that this image was created through direct sunlight adds another layer of meaning—it’s as if nature itself is participating in this act of preservation. The process captures not just the form of the cotton but something of its essence, its being-in-time.
This relates directly to how I think artists process mortality differently—we’re not just recording death, we’re transforming it into something luminous and enduring.
Photogenic Drawings
As a visual artist exploring mortality and creativity, I'm fascinated by how Talbot's early photographic experiments mirror our human desire to capture and preserve moments against the inevitable flow of time. In 1834, five years before photography was officially announced to the world, William Henry Fox Talbot began his quest to record nature's fleeting images. His work wasn't just about technical innovation—it was about our deep-seated need to hold onto the ephemeral.
What draws me to Talbot's process is its raw intimacy with light and shadow, life and death. He called these camera-less images "photogenic drawings" drawings"—drawings born from light itself. The process feels almost alchemical: paper baptized in sodium chloride, anointed with silver nitrate that darkens like aging skin in the sun. When he laid objects—delicate botanical specimens or intricate lace—on this sensitized surface, he was essentially creating shadows, preserving the ghost prints of these items in negative space. Where light touched, darkness bloomed; where objects blocked the light, whiteness remained.
The resulting images were fragile, temporary—not yet truly "fixed" in photographic terms, but stabilized in a salt solution. Like our own attempts at immortality through art, they existed in a transitional space between permanence and fade. Talbot's preference for recording delicate, intricate patterns in nature speaks to me of our attempt to capture beauty before it withers, to hold onto the detailed texture of existence before it slips away.
His negative-to-positive process, which became the foundation for photography throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, fundamentally changed how we preserve our memories, our faces, and our moments of being. In doing so, it transformed how we negotiate with our own mortality.
Book cover of “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil” 2025.
Blurb and Cover for My New Book
Through four years of living in the shadow of Sun Mountain (Tava-Kavvi) on ancestral Nuuchiu (Ute) lands in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, artist Quinn Jacobson confronts humanity's deepest psychological armor: our denial of death.
Using historical photographic processes and contemporary painting, he excavates the hidden forces behind cultural violence, erasure, and our desperate attempts at immortality.
Internationally renowned for reviving 19th-century wet plate collodion techniques, Jacobson merges this haunting medium with terror management theory and the writings of Ernest Becker to explore how death anxiety shapes human behavior.
Through his intimate collaboration with the mountain's landscapes, sacred plants, and symbols, he reveals both the wounds of colonization and possibilities for healing through artistic creation.
In the Shadow of Sun Mountain is a raw meditation on mortality, creativity, and the stories we tell ourselves to keep darkness at bay.
More than an artist's memoir, it is an invitation to confront the universal truth that shapes every human life: our shared impermanence.
“Baby Ponderosa Pine,” 8.5” x 6.5” (Whole Plate) POP Print from a wet collodion negative. I really like this image. I made the negative early in the morning in the summer time. The light from the east was just starting to peer over Sun Mountain. It’s such a perfect metaphor for what I’ve written about in my book. I titled my book “In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil” for this reason; all of the photographs I made for the project were (literally) made in the shadow of the mountain. It’s a great metaphor for both the historical events that took place here and the theories I’ve used as my foundation for the work.
Editing Artwork For My Book
Writing is an exercise in balance. It's the skill of retaining a reader's interest for an extended period, guiding them through the intricacies of your story. And let’s be honest—it’s hard to do well.
As a visual artist, I’ve spent years working in mediums I deeply understand: photography and visual arts. Writing, though? That’s a newer addition to my creative repertoire. Am I a writer? Maybe. Ask me again after you’ve read my book. For now, I’ll say this: I’m proud of the work I’ve done, but I’m acutely aware of the challenges. Writing isn’t about grammar or structure alone—it’s about connection. It’s about creating something that resonates, that lingers. Time will be the judge of whether I’ve succeeded.
In contrast, when it comes to visual art, I know my footing. I’ve spent decades refining my craft, immersed in observation, thought, and exploration. Despite my confidence, I find myself at a crucial juncture. I’m editing the visuals for my book—selecting which photographs and artworks will make it to print. The process is as exciting as it is painstaking. With over 200 pieces to choose from, I’m paring it down to 50, maybe 75. Every cut feels like a sacrifice.
How do I choose? For me, it’s all about context—how each image aligns with the narrative. The connection between the visuals and the text has to be seamless. Every photograph, every piece of artwork, must do more than look beautiful; it must amplify the story, offering a lens into its deeper layers.
This process reminds me of something essential: storytelling, whether through words or images, isn’t about showing everything—it’s about showing the right things. It’s about creating space for meaning, for resonance. And if I can do that, then maybe—just maybe—I’ll have a successful piece of work.
I still remember the first time I encountered the term homo narrans. The idea struck me immediately: storytelling, not language or reasoning, is what sets humans apart from other species. It suggests that we make decisions based on the coherence of stories rather than cold, hard logic. That resonates deeply with me. Storytelling isn’t just something we do—it’s how we make sense of our world, how we uncover meaning, and how we better understand ourselves.
Humans, though, carry an extraordinary burden. We’re the only creatures who know we’re alive and, someday, will die. That knowledge—whether we admit it or not—is crushing. Most of us suppress it, carrying the weight unconsciously. But it shows up, often in destructive ways, shaping our behavior and relationships in ways we don’t always recognize.
I see it every day. People walking around, bogged down by what some thinkers call the "overabundance of consciousness." There’s even a theory that our awareness of mortality—our recognition of death—was an evolutionary misstep. It’s hard not to feel that sometimes. But I also know this: if we hadn’t evolved the ability to deny and distort the reality of death, we wouldn’t have survived. That’s clear to me. Fear would have paralyzed us, kept us from taking risks, from facing danger, from living.
Think about it. We drive cars, walk across busy streets, play contact sports—all things that carry real risk. If we were constantly aware of what could go wrong, we’d be immobilized. And in our younger years, we pushed those limits even further. Some of us didn’t make it. I’ve written about those moments—stories of risk-taking and the tragic outcomes they sometimes led to. And yet, we still carry on, fueled by the unspoken belief: it won’t happen to me. That denial is what makes action possible, what allows us to survive, even thrive.
This dynamic fascinates me. The way we navigate mortality—the lies we tell ourselves, the unconscious bargains we strike—is at the heart of what it means to be human. As I’ve studied these ideas, I’ve come to understand just how central this denial is to our survival. It’s a feature of our evolution, not a flaw.
I’m excited to see these ideas come to life in my book. If you're interested, stay tuned to this blog for updates on its release date. I’m still deciding the best format: hardcover, softcover, audiobook, Kindle? Maybe all of the above. Stay tuned. It’s coming soon.
In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: Almost Ready to Publish
A Summary of my book, In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of Othering and the Origins of Evil
I’m very close to finishing my book. It’s exciting and frightening at the same time. I tend to overthink and overdo things like this. The exciting part is that I feel I’m contributing something important to the world (my immortality project that buffers my existential terror). I know it sounds serious and maybe even a bit arrogant, but it’s important work to me, and I feel it’s the best I’ve made so far in my life.
Nothing is ever perfect; I don’t even like that word, but my book is as close to that idea as I can get right now. For the past several months, I’ve put everything on hold so I could finish this. I procrastinated doing it because I knew how difficult it was going to be. I’d written the bulk of the book in Colorado (over the winters there) and just had to tackle the editing and revising. I’ll have a rough draft of the text very soon.
Who’s my audience? Anyone who’s interested in deconstructing existentialism and art. In other words, creative people that struggle with being, meaning, and significance. If you like art, psychology, philosophy, and history (plus a lot of crazy personal stories), you’ll like this book.
Chapter Six is almost 100 pages of artwork. It’s the final chapter of the book. I’ve just started the editing process for that portion. That will be a lot easier for me than the text has been. I hope to include a lot of work that’s never been seen before. I have some of my old Polaroid work from the late 1980s and early 1990s, some of my abstract, naive paintings that haven’t been published, etc. Plus the work from my time in the mountains of Colorado—that’s the bulk of the artwork—platium-palladium prints, talbotypes, calotypes, RA-4 color prints, cyanotypes, kallitypes, etc. all from wet and dry collodion negatives or material printed on contact.
Throughout Chapter Two (A Phenomenological Autobiography), I’ve included old, personal photographs of family and friends. It was the most difficult chapter to write for me. I’ve written stories about my life and how those experiences shaped me and led me to being an artist. I felt that it was important to share some personal, difficult stories in order for the work to make sense. I think I succeeded; the readers will tell me if I did or not.
In the book, I sought to distill decades of artistic exploration, existential inquiry, and deeply personal reflection into a single work. It is a book about reckoning—with history, with the self, and with the unrelenting shadow of mortality (the denial of death and death anxiety). As both an artist and a thinker, I have always gravitated toward the difficult, the ineffable, the truths we turn from in our daily lives. This book represents my most earnest attempt to confront those truths head-on.
At its core, this book deconstructs the human condition, peeling back the layers of history and psychology to interrogate the mechanisms that shape us: death anxiety, cultural worldviews, and the ways we “other” those who do not fit within our carefully constructed paradigms. Drawing heavily on the work of Ernest Becker and Terror Management Theory, I explore how our collective denial of death fuels cycles of violence, fear, and division while also propelling creativity, culture, and heroism.
My writing is not just an intellectual exercise. It’s deeply personal, woven with stories of my own life—moments of loss, resilience, and awakening that have shaped me as an artist and a human being. From the landscapes of Colorado, where the Tabeguache Ute once thrived, to the internal landscapes of addiction, grief, and redemption, this book traverses terrains both literal and metaphorical.
The art itself—photographs of sacred landscapes, abstract paintings born of existential struggle—serves as both a mirror and a meditation. These works are not merely illustrations of theory; they are my way of grappling with the weight of impermanence. As Otto Rank observed, the artist transmutes inner turmoil into external creation and, through that process, finds a measure of meaning amidst the chaos—that’s what I’ve tried to do.
I don’t pretend that this book offers definitive answers. Instead, it is an invitation—a call to reflect, to question, to feel. If it succeeds, it will stir something in the reader, prompting a deeper engagement with the fragility and beauty of our shared existence.
In the Shadow of Sun Mountain is my offering—a testament to the power of art to illuminate the shadows, to reckon with history, and to remind us, as fleeting as our time may be, of the profound significance of simply being. And some may even find the answers to how I’ve “come to terms with death” through a creative life, gratitude, humility, and awe.