todd baxter imagines the misadventures of two ill-fated scouts

todd baxter’s photo series ‘owl scouts: lost in the woods’ is a collection of ethereal images illustrating the ill-fated adventures of two wayward young explorers. captured in a sequence of cinematic photographs, the collection documents the trials and tribulations the pair face after losing their way in the wilderness.

(above) ceremonial portrait — boy
(main) challenge 03: tornado — sitting and watching

colorful, humorous, surreal and touchingly sad, ‘owl scouts’ walks the line between dream and reality, drawing a lifelike picture of struggle and adversity while also tapping into that very childlike sense of adventure that brings so much life to the series. almost like a field trip’s to-do list, the images are sequentialised by numbered ‘challenges’, each challenge testing the children in new and intimidating ways, inevitably ending in tragedy.

challenge 01: owl burrow — dropping flashlight

be it retrieving lost torches or facing off against a grizzly bear, todd baxter finds endless obstacles for the children to overcome. rendered in a filmic and fantastical aesthetic, each new hurdle has the viewer rooting for the misfortunate children more and more. sadly for the scouts however, salvation is not something the artist has in mind. ‘I was going through a divorce during the creation process for owl scouts’, explains baxter. ‘not surprisingly, I found myself ruminating on what kills a marriage – all the little challenges and failures that add up to its ultimate failure’.

challenge 01: owl burrow — looking into hole

‘some people are really put off by the kids dying in owl scouts, but it was clear to me from the beginning that they had to’ he continues. ‘that was the story I needed to tell. I wasn’t even sure at that point that marriages could end any other way’. behind the tragedy, for baxter, was a strangely comforting realization. despite our sorrow at seeing the children perish, the artist takes solace in the fact that as far as the universe was concerned, the deaths are nothing personal.

challenge 01: owl burrow — reaching into hole

‘the universe wasn’t out to get me, after all. it didn’t care if I survived or not. that was freeing – to think about the whole thing through the lens of the archetypal battle between man and nature, where man has this irrational need to control nature in order to survive, even though nature is uncontrollable and without intention or expectations.’

this realization on behalf of the artist — that despite the appearance of a nefarious agenda, in reality, the universe isn’t orchestrating your misery — lends a quietly philosophical perspective to the trials of the two children, and goes some way to assuaging the viewer’s horror at their downfall.

challenge 01: owl burrow — bit hand