Juniper Hills 2020
I made a drive out to Juniper Hills recently to an area devastated by the Bob Cat fire of 2020. Despite the tall grasses and bushels, the Joshua Trees were nothing but charred remains never to recover. It was a reminder of how the environment changes over time in a natural way (fire caused by lightning strike), which although natural, is still sad to behold in a area that was once so green and lush.
“All we can do is capture the past, anything else, in time, won’t last. “
The Great American Dream
Slab City 2024
So much has changed in America since I first moved here in 2002. Traveling around back in the early 2000’s seemed so much more simple. Just a map, an old truck, and a dog called Piglet. There was always a cheap diner, or motel ready to accommodate after a dusty day of shooting. Gas was less than a dollar a gallon, a tire puncture cost five dollars to fix, and you could always find a shop that sold film. Today, Diners are few and far between, charging fine dining prices. A tank of gas is as much as a hotel, and a motel is more than a hundred dollars a night. A puncture will set you back fifty dollars, unless its a run-flat and then its a new tire. And of course there are no shops selling film. But despite this inflated lunacy, some things never change. The calling of the open road continues and the American Dream, although now too far out of reach for most younger Americans, still remains.
The Stories we tell one another.
Very often, good photography has an air of mystery around it. But revealing the mystery can often deflate the response, just like revealing a magic trick. As a photographer its good to keep something back, but not just visually. Countless times I have ventured out only to be ravaged by weather, attacked by dogs, charged by cows, or falling down hillsides. But as entertaining as these incidents my be, they should never be used to prop us a photograph as it will often outdo the image. Indeed, there have been times when people have sat around a dinner table talking about the baldy northern photographer who made an image while having his leg chewed on by a Pit Bull (Gas Station, Salton Sea 2004). The image then became all about the dog gnawing on my bones, and not the an area of the Salton Sea as originally intended. Of course there are times when a story and the image go hand in hand, but for now I will keep those to myself..
These three things.
Salton 2024
It’s nice when things fall into place. A interesting subject, good light and of course, being there, wherever there is. Thankfully my last trip had all the goodies I needed and now there is a nice foundation with which to continue. Going back to the Salton Sea after all these years was like seeing an old school friend; A little older, a little slower, and perhaps a little wiser..
Note to self.
A toilet in front of beautiful sand dunes, 2023.
For me there are three types of photography; The first is visually pleasing, (usually minimal in its appearance and appealing to both artists and layman). This kind of imagery is mostly instinctive often with no other reason than, “because I liked the look of it.” The second is a lot more complex. Usually not so appealing, but carries much more significance and meaning. (This kind of image was thought about before or after the shutter was released). The third is a combination of one and two which, from experience, does not happen often. I think we are duped into thinking some photographers deliver a strong one-two, when really its just because someone else said so. Its all just so subjective.
Photography is like an actor. They might be beautiful (visually appealing), or offer something no one else has, or, be a combination of both. Then, for whatever reason, like photography, the right people agree they should be popular for a while. But, like photography, that person can be quickly made unpopular, should the others decide.
Like it or not, this is the way photography, and the art world works. Remember, you can take all the beautiful, meaningful images you like, but it will always be up to someone else to decide your photographic destiny.
Doubt in the Desert.
Mojave 2024
Despite spending so much time in the Mojave, there is always something waiting to be photographed, especially when, like me, your work consists of mans interaction with the landscape and the things we leave behind.
The Sonoran Desert on the other hand, has a different feeling as nothing there feels familiar. Despite venturing out to the Salton Sea last month, a place I have spent a fair bit of time, everything felt different. A lot of this may have been down to the weather as it was the first time I had experienced rain there. But I think it’s more that that, or the difference in the landscape, climate. There is also a feeling of trepidation with the Sonoran being ‘part two’. Will it be as good? Will it even work? Am I wasting time and money? With last months trip being a bit of a wash out, feelings of doubt now fill my mind.
After one of the worst years on record, things would seem to be on the up moving through the new year at rapid pace. I have always thought that good things often come from adversity, especially when it comes to creativity and often remind myself that no one goes out on a warm sunny day and produces something thought provoking (others of course might, but I certainly don’t).
Ever since I picked up a camera, I never photographed what people would consider nice things discovering a nuance for the mundane, rusty and derelict. Be it a bad smell, an awful mood, or a place you wouldn’t want to go, photography can filter out the bad stuff and present us with something pleasing to look at.
Soggy bottoms and the boredom of perfection.
As a landscape photographer the weather has always played the biggest part in my work. Anyone who knows nothing of photography will tell you that a bright sunny cloudless day would be ‘perfect’ to go out and take pictures, and of course for some people it would be. But generally speaking, cloudless blue skies are not really for me.
Jura, Scotland, 2006
In 2006 I ventured around the Scottish coastline making work with an 8/10” camera. For an entire month I was as moody as the weather and the sun did not shine once. There was not a single day when I wasn’t soaked through. But that soggy adventure was one that brought about some of my best work.
There is a boredom that comes from perfection. If something is considered perfect it cannot be changed.
THE ITCHY FINGER
Some time ago a good friend and photographer told me about his itchy finger. It was a term he used when all he wanted to do was make a photograph but didn’t have a commission, or even an idea. He would head out with a small hand held camera and just walk around. Although this may seem an obvious thing to do, many photographers need an idea and a purpose to make work. But in fact, the act of going out without rhyme or reason, is an idea, and lets not forget that just going out and looking for something to photograph is often how photographers become photographers.
A rainy day in Palm Springs, 2024.
Long ago I wrote a thesis for my photography masters on photography and memory. As much as my tutors hated the idea,“because everyone does that.” They were right, but there is a reason why so many photographers make images based around memory because its part of who we are.
Photography and memory will always go hand in had. Not because we can recreate memories using photography, but because we can make photographs that help us remember.
A Sonoran Soaking.
Salton Sea 2024
There is often a feeling of self doubt when embarking on a new project, or in this case a new section to my desert project. The fact that this is part two adds another layer of trepidation after spending two years photographing the Mojave, a body of work I am most pleased with. Setting out into the Sonoran Desert during a torrential downpour, did not fill me with glee, and neither did the flash floods that followed. However, after battling through the waters and almost being washed away (“Oh, its not that deep!”), the clouds made way for some moody and satisfying events.
Boots now cleaned, and panoramic camera laid out to dry (how that thing is still going is a miracle), the second chapter has begun, and its not half bad.
Somewhere in Arizona
An old college friend once said to me, “I won’t make a photograph unless someone pays me.” The sad part was that he never made a photograph since then. As is often the case, you need to spend money to make money. A simple photography scenario would be, to sell a framed print you need to make a framed print, and that can be expensive. If we include other related costs, such as travel, equipment, accommodation, we may become terrified at the expense and never make another photograph, but that is the price of creative freedom.
The moment you choose to make money from your photography is the moment it costs you.
Don’t move, speak, or fall in love.
As a young lad I photographed everything and everyone and may of continued to photograph everyone, had I not met my wife. I remember the day I first saw her portraits. They were so good that on a romantic trip to Paris, I decided that I just could not compete and turned my photography solely onto things that did not move or speak. What may have been the most romantic city in the world had become a place I would photograph void of people, and in this instance void of romance, much to the disappointment of my better half. There are times when I wished I still photographed people, but I’d still rather photograph things that don’t move, speak, or have eyes.
A hot smelly old friend.
Leaving Middle America, December 2023
With Middle America now but a distant memory, I focus my attention back to the big stuff and part two of my desert project, The Deserving Oasis (working title). As much as I loved being in the Mojave (Fridays Rainshadow), this next chapter takes place in the Sonoran Desert, a very different beasty indeed. In 2002 I spent the best part of twelve months working in the Sonoran desert around the Salton Sea. Every Thursday I would head out from LA with ten 8/10” dark slides and spend the day sheltering from the intense heat in the abandoned structures until the sun went down before making some images (usually ten), and then driving back to LA bathed in sweat, dust and a baked on smile. The heat of the Sonoran made everything difficult, but the results always made it worthwhile. This time things will be a little different, mainly the camera, (my knackered old panoramic), and perhaps a better idea of where things are (no GPS last time). But my hope is that my hot, smelly old friend hasn’t changed too much.
Favorites.
Christmas Day, New Mexico, 2023.
For as long as I can remember, my favorite photograph has never been someone else’s favorite, but of course, its not just me. The conundrum is that if we just photograph for ourselves, then who is going to buy all our favorite photographs? All too often I see photographers making a book which they edit themselves and then wonder why no one buys it. Of course there will be people who like what you like, but that might not be as many as you think, if it was we would all be rich and famous. In the art world there is plenty of room for good work, but there is also plenty of room for bad work. All it takes is one person to say the right thing and a career can take off for someone leaving the rest of us jumping up and down with frustration, but that’s objectivity for you.
We will always feel a little deflated if someone doesn’t like what we like, but the trick is to not care. After all, the only opinion about your own work that matters is yours. My late father once told me, “You can spend your whole life trying to please the bastards, but you never will. Don’t waste your time or their time. Just be your own man.” I think this applies to anything you do in life, especially photography.
The Story
Being introduced to a new university photography degree program today made me realize how long I had been practicing as well as teaching photography. Having spent many years shooting film, my work is now a mixture of celluloid and digital and a different mind over the young ones who perhaps don’t know what film or a wet darkroom is. But having worked at a fair few establishments I have learned that the same issues arise wherever you are, they just come in different forms. All we need to do is remember that photography is just our way of seeing the world and nothing more. How we present it, is a whole other story..
It was the worst of times and the best of times.
1.Mustang, Indiana. 2.Trucks, Indiana. 3. Crossroads, Ohio. 4.Crosses, New Mexico. 5.Iceland.
My guess is that most photographers get to the end of the year and look back on what they have done. Some will have shot thousands of frames, Some a few hundreds, some not so many, and some, none at all. The late, great, Ansel Adam’s claimed if you got 12 good images a year (with an emphasis on good), you were doing well. Although this is something most would ridicule these days having no understanding of large format cameras and the struggles thereof.
For me this has been a good year photographically for reasons I will go into, but the downside is that it has also been the most tragic. We only need to look back through the history of art to see that so often, adversity makes way for great art, or to put it another way, no one goes out with a camera on a sunny day feeling happy and produces something thought provoking.
Indiana is possibly the strangest place I have ever been to. In a land where everyone seems content and happy with their lives, for me there was always a feeling of impending doom. Maybe it was being a thousand miles from the ocean, or IMO a poor quality of life for many there, but I was never able to put my finger on it. I think this image does a good job of showing a once better time. The classic car, now rusty and falling apart, as is the house with descending fog and humidity on a daily basis. There was always a sense of this is it, it was once good, but its not getting better.
Another image from Indiana made on the coldest day of the year (-40f). This image does a good job of showing the harshness of the winters in Middle America. I did not see a single other person on this day. “Only an Englishman would go out with his camera while everyone else stayed inside.” I have always liked the idea of photographing harsh environments, but despite being to a few places of extreme weather, this really was something else.
During the road trip to Middle America from California, I began shooting black and white. After a decade of just color, it was a bit of a revelation and I felt like an artist again. At a time when digital had become about who has the most megapixels, it was great going back to a more pure, hands on approach, and the nostalgia of the great American road trip. This was one image where everything fell into place. The light on the sign and the shadow on the road, together with the stormy sky made for probably my favorite image of the year.
All I will say about this image is that there was lightning strikes all around me and I was standing in an open field.
It had been more that 10 years since I last visited Iceland. The first time was in the mid 90’s and it was there that I started shooting color film for the first time. Going there this year I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to shoot and how I wanted the images to look with this image ticking all the boxes.
Overall I have produced what I would consider some of my best work. The bright vivid colors of my earlier work are no longer, but this is something that has been gradual over the years. The techniques have not changed and the cameras remain the same.
It was the worst of times and the best of times.
Lets be fancy.
I’ve never been a fan of camera worship and will tell anyone starting out, the camera is a tool. But of course there are exceptions. The Leica for instance not only looks different, but it feels different. Even so, doing a picture of my camera felt awkward and something that belongs on Instagram. I am not one for bragging rights and the status that comes with owning an expensive camera. All one has to do is look at my large format film cameras to see that..
In the past few years I have noticed a spike in camera worship, especially with mirror-less cameras. They are smaller, have less parts, and perhaps more affordable, but they are certainly no better than an SLR, and have, in my opinion many undesirable features, such as a digital viewer rather than actually looking through the lens.
The camera will always be a box with a lens. Everything else is just an add on.
The Minds Eye.
Paris, England, and a prison in the 90’s.
After a lot of traveling and staying in all kinds of odd places in the past two weeks, its nice to settle for a while and contemplate ones past, and perhaps, future efforts. Traveling from East to West by car is always inspiring, the feeling of a tourist always looking in, magnified.
I spent a large part of the 90’s working in darkrooms and would often go to work in the dark, work in the dark, and then go home in the dark. As depressing as this my seem, I was constantly immersed in photography from all over the world and would often be taken to a place, in my mind, as an image appeared in the developing tray. This came as no surprise having sold prints to clients because they have been to a particular place, or were reminded of a particular place and time in their lives when viewing a certain image. The power that photography gives us to travel without leaving the house, or darkroom, is something I will always hold dear.