Loose Joints Studio

Loose Joints Publishing

Scorched Red Earth is a depiction of the environmental crisis facing Madagascar, from a photographer whose engaging style weaves together documentary and fine art approaches to the world we live in. Despite little coverage in the Western press, Madagascar faces an uncertain future: it is the world's poorest yet also most biodiverse country, with wildlife that has nowhere else to go and people who have nowhere else to turn. With images covering deforestation, bushmeat hunting, illegal mining, and more, Scorched Red Earth is also accompanied by a detailed text exploring the social and political context to the islands imminent environmental crisis.

We worked directly with Barney to sequence his four trips to Madagascar into a short but urgent sequence of images, beautifully printed in tritone. Barney's text is visually emphasised to highlight the urgency and starkness of the island's current predicament, and envelops the images across the front and back of the book. The whole project is produced and printed on a mix of recycled and FSC-certified papers and processes. Scorched Red Earth is self-published in an edition of 400 and each copy comes with a handmade removable silver gelatin print from the artist embedded in the cover.