EXPLORING THE ZONE - 2014

While shooting photographs of an abandoned building in 2010, I made an accidental double exposure with my 4x5 camera that turned out quite nice.  Based on that chance occurrence and the montage work in my Conflict on the Plains and Excavating Childhood series, I started shooting digital images with the idea of combining the images to create fantastic places.  The thematic inspiration for this series is Tarkovsky's 1979 film Stalker.  In the film an area in Russian has become uninhabitable due to some catastrophe where the laws of time and space have stopped working.  Only adventurous people dare to travel into what is called "The Zone", led by people with extrasensory skills called Stalkers.  This is my exploration of the Zone.

In May of 2018 I traveled to Nice, France to attend the Solaris Film Festival. A film that I worked on with Kayla Briet and Isabella Dos Santos, "Solitude, Darkness, Light" was accepted for screening, and since I’ve always wanted to go to France, I thought it would be worth looking into. The only way I could afford to go was to make it a short trip, and only ended up being in Nice for only two days. I made the most of it and ended up having a wonderful time. I met some amazing filmmakers and artists at the festival, and I gave myself time to walk around the city. Since 1984 I have been a fan of French photographer Eugène Atget (1857-1927). So, while I was there, I couldn't help myself in making photographs that emulated his work.

Every few years I try to take my younger son on a photo expedition during his spring break. This year we took a whirlwind 4-day trip across the Mojave Desert. Many of the stories from this trip are told on my Instagram feed. 

Between 2016 and 2018 I was part of a cultural resources team that documented the historic resources along the I-70 corridor in Denver that were going to be affected by the demolition of the 1960s era viaducts and the expansion of the new highway. I took almost 1000 photographs. Here are about 70 that show the range of places.