An Unflinching Look delivers a powerful statement about the future that awaits the upper Florida Gulf Coast peninsula. When viewing Dimmitt’s mesmerizing and sobering photographs...one sees that the future is already here and moving rapidly toward apocalypse.
—Jack E. Davis, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Gulf: The Making of An American Sea

An Unflinching Look is an examination of a unique North American ecosystem in decline, investigated through eighty-five duotone photographs, scientific analysis, and critical interpretation. The project’s focus is the area of the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge on Florida’s Gulf Coast and the history and fate of its wetlands.

Tombolo Books is thrilled to welcome photographer and educator Benjamin Dimmitt to the bookstore to share more about his beautiful and timely photography collection.

Dimmitt will be joined in conversation by Research Scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Dr. Matt McCarthy and Executive Curator for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Robin O'Dell.

Let us know we will see you there! Please RSVP at the link provided!

Benjamin Dimmitt is a photographer, author and second generation native Floridian. He graduated from Eckerd College in St. Petersburg in 1976 and moved to New York City where he studied at the International Center of Photography and later at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops. He held an adjunct professor position at the International Center of Photography from 2001-2013, teaching landscape photography and black & white photography. His photographs investigate interdependence, competition, survival and mortality in the natural environment. Dimmitt’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums, galleries and festivals internationally and is held in multiple major museums and private collections.

Dr. Matt McCarthy is a Research Associate Scientist in the Remote Sensing Group of the Geospatial Science and Human Security Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He earned his master’s and PhD in oceanography, and now uses satellite imagery to conduct large-scale, high-resolution studies of coastal regions to better understand how human activity and a changing climate are affecting coastal habitats, coastal populations, and national security.

Robin O’Dell is the Executive Curator for the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Ybor City, as well as a contributing writer for The Artisan Magazine and Creative Pinellas’ Arts Coast Magazine. Formerly the Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, she has also worked with the Keith Haring Archive in New York, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, and the Tampa Museum of Art, among others.