|
In 1980, the house I was
renting in Carmel Valley was sold. Deciding to move to the most extreme
environment I could conceive of, I chose Death Valley. In Carmel Valley
you could throw a seed out the window and in a few months it would
be growing. I wanted to see the opposite. I wanted to test my ability
to photograph a landscape that offered minimal distraction: stark
beauty. I needed to test my own limits in picture making. I wanted
to know how to photograph nothing.
I lived for two years
(1980‑1982) in a small town called Death Valley Junction, population
six—until the handyman moved to Utah to herd sheep. I worked with
my 8x10 each day for two years, photographing the people and landscape.
This work has been shown often and is in many collections. In 1982
I received the Friends of Photography’s Ruttenberg Grant for this
body of work. Of the eight hundred negatives made in Death Valley,
only a fraction were originally printed. Recently I have gone back
to these exciting negatives and begun printing them again.
I left Death Valley at
the end of 1982, moving back to Carmel. I rented a storefront and
made it into my darkroom and studio.
| |
|
|
