Secrets from the Center of the World

Images in this portfolio were assembled from photographs of the desert southwest taken between 1980 and 2000. They attempt to capture what is nearly beyond the camera’s grasp: a land shaped by millennial forces and yesterday’s cloudburst into undulations of color and form–its history reimagined in light that at once penetrates and sculpts. I bring to this landscape the sensibilities of an astronomer who has lived in the desert for almost 20 years, and in whom the desert has lived for more than 30. My tools are simple: a 35mm or 4×5 view camera, and long focal length lenses whose power to compress vast desert spaces can create an illusion of intimacy, of comprehension. The original transparencies were scanned, processed and reformatted, inviting viewers to look deeply into what light and earth together form.