MOPD Reviews: Dustin Randall Keirns: In Regard to Nature

MOPD Reviews: Dustin Randall Keirns: In Regard to Nature by Aline SmithsonJuly 1, 2025

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Ant Hill, Mt.Oxford, Sawatch Mountain Range, Colorado, 2024

I create imaginative dramas of epic landscapes that explore where humans and nature intersect. Through these adventures I gain insight into the intrinsic connection to the environment and what it means to live on Earth.

I recently had the pleasure to meet with Dustin Randall Keirns at the Month of Photography Denver Portfolio Reviews. He brought a series of stunning photographs of Colorado (and Bolivian) vistas, reminding us that in the midst of political turmoil, the earth is a magnificent place. Today, we share three interconnected series, In Regards to Nature, Melt, and Poems for Colorado — each examining the wilderness and the environmental challenges shaping it.

The artist shares: I discovered photography at a young age thanks to my grandfather who was a passionate hobbyist. It soon became a powerful way for me to engage and make sense of the world around me. I have always found great inspiration within the landscape and photographing the natural world has allowed me to explore my connection to the land.

Since returning to Colorado in 2015, the back country has been a central protagonist in my work, capturing the raw wilderness and natural abstractions that I witness on my adventures.

Coming this Fall, Keirns will release the book, Poems for Colorado, that can be pre-ordered here.

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Connected, Uyuni, Bolivia, 2020

Dustin Randall Keirns is a fine art photographer based in Denver, Colorado. He earned a BFA in photography from the School of Visual Arts in New York and studied abroad at L’École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne (ÉCAL) in Switzerland. While at SVA, he worked with Richard Renaldi on the Mentors Thesis exhibition, which earned him a darkroom fellowship from the New York Camera Club (now Baxter Street). In 2025, he participated in Seeing Pink: The Queer Perspective in Photography, a workshop led by Renaldi through the International Center of Photography. His first solo exhibition, Reminiscence, opened in January 2025 at the Molly Brown House Museum in Denver, and he currently has an exhibition on view at the Teller House in collaboration with Central City Opera. Earlier this year, he was selected for a solo issue (No. 24) with Pearl Press and his debut monograph, Poems for Colorado, is set to release in late summer 2025.

Instagram: @dustinkeirns

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Yellow Brick Road, Holbrook Creek, Colorado, 2023

In Regard to Nature

In Regard to Nature explores the human desire to venture beyond the familiar and into the untamed wilderness—a space both chaotic and wondrous. This connection between people and the natural world often begins with roads that lead to trails and vast open waters that guide us toward places where nature feels raw and unfiltered. These entry points serve as thresholds between the built environment and the wild, allowing us to immerse ourselves in landscapes that are exhilarating, humbling, and unpredictable.

As we journey into these natural realms, we confront the complexities of our relationship with the land. The wilderness is not just a scenic backdrop but a dynamic force—one that reflects our own fragility and resilience. The shifting environmental landscape mirrors our vulnerabilities and limitations, reminding us of the impermanence of both nature and our place within it. At the same time, it challenges us to reconsider what it means to belong in a world that is constantly evolving.

Through this work, I explore not only the physical presence of humans in these landscapes but also the psychological and emotional experience of engaging with nature. How do we see ourselves within the vastness of the wild? What do these encounters reveal about our identity, our desires, and our place in the larger ecological narrative? In Regard to Nature is an exploration of these questions, capturing the interplay between humans and the wilderness—where solitude and adventure, insignificance and discovery, come together in a shared and ever-changing dialogue.

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Diamond Face, Longs Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado, 2023

©Dustin Randall Keirns, What Goes Up, Mt. Parnassus, Colorado, 2023

©Dustin Randall Keirns, On a Horse with No Name, White Sands National Park, New Mexico, 2021

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Soft and Easy, Santa Cruz Lake, New Mexico, 2022

Melt

Melt focuses on the abstract forms of vanishing seasonal snowfields, remnants of glaciers, and high-altitude tarns in the Colorado Rockies serve as reflections on the Colorado’s role as a headwater state. These landscapes, shaped long ago by the hand of ice, tell the geologic story of a past where glaciers carved valleys and left behind the alpine terrain we see today.

Despite the U.S. Geological Survey listing 16 named glaciers in Colorado, most are no longer considered active by glaciologists—they have ceased to move. Their presence, though diminished, is a reminder of the impermanence of these icy relics and the larger forces at play.

Through these images, I explore not only the beauty of these glacial remnants but also the broader implications of a warming world. As these landscapes continue to change, they challenge us to consider the urgency of water conservation.

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Teal Water Basin, Triangle Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Melt, Matterhorn Creek, Colorado, 2024

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Temporary Topography, Isabelle Glacier Tarn, Indian Peaks Wilderness, 2024

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Snow Form, Matterhorn Creek, Colorado, 2024

©Dustin Randall Keirns, Thirst, Upper Blue Lakes, Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range, Colorado, 2023

Poems for Colorado

This series traverses snowy summits, steep valleys, and alpine lakes that funnel into controlled flows between high canyon walls, showcasing the complexity of Colorado’s most vital resource: water. They highlight the need to protect wilderness areas while balancing the innate human desire to explore this magnificent nature. The journey through the wilderness bears witness to the current climate landscape as it changes with the seasons of Colorful Colorado.