(Earlier posts on the Pioneers project:
I,
II,
III,
IV,
V)
Keen eyes will notice that the above map, from a 4 a.m. planning session at the Wendover Motel 6, covers Nevada, our 36th state and home to my newest trip for the
Pioneers! O Pioneers! project. I was sent to Vegas last week to shoot a feature story for a great new client and was able to tack on an extra week to tackle the Silver State (though I photographed a lot more gold activity both current and civil war-era). Tackle is really the right word... NV is damn large, the 7th largest actually, and I covered more than 1500 miles of it's circumference over the last few days.
What I found - I had never been outside of Vegas, the Hoover dam, and the interstates leading to/from the
Grand Circle loop - is a beautiful and beautifully empty state (2/3rds lives in the Vegas metro area) with a lot of elevation, sand, and wind, a lot of history, natural beauty, and some weird bits, all of which is basically right in line with my project.
Similar to the feeling of leaving NYC to go anywhere and change pace, leaving the Vegas strip is also a great escape... and Monday morning I was up early heading north, gaining elevation, and headed through the Great Basin all the way up to the NE corner of the state. Along the way I was pulled over for speeding (god love these tiny towns who run the speed limit, on a 7% grade coming down a mountain, from 70mph to 25mph over the course of a 1/4 mile), narrowly missed a snow storm, and ran into a natural wonder to rival Utah's best (
Cathedral Gorge is an insanely pretty place and should be a part of NPS).
For whatever reason, maybe because I stayed away from the tables the previous week, this third trip had luck... the afore-mentioned cop only gave me a warning (I was doing +12) and was a photography buff who was happy to chat and had suggestions. Beautiful and private property was always empty or relatively easy to access with something I could easily climb to get some height. The sky seemed to always clear (or a cloud suddenly blunt the midday sun) at opportune times. South of Reno I drove on maybe the most ridiculously fun public road I've ever experienced (I've driven A LOT) in US-120 going east of Mono Lake.
At times, as I found my cheap lodging well after dark, the following day's plan looked almost blank but somewhere/how I would run smack into a really juicy spot by just getting on the road early and trucking on, and through that the momentum stayed by my side, keeping the more natural long road trip companions of self-doubt and loathing in the back seat.
Whether or not the photographs will tease this luck further out remains to be seen of course, but I shot nearly all of my allotted film so there is a gitty in my
up heading back to NYC. In general though the project is starting to form into a solid shape with specific themes:
The west is big, the west is empty, nature is powerful and un-tameable, the west is useful, tourism shapes the west in strange ways, RV parks are bizarrely gravitating, the western cities are sprawling in mockery of the natural beauty steps beyond it's vague borders, the west is America, the west is freedom, the west is...
Likely each successive trip will be better than the last because I'll be that much better at finding pieces which fit together and getting closer to a body of work that hangs together. As much as I love driving and exploring the world, I want to be building something real with this project, something that has weight and scale. In Nevada I tried to find some evidence of what the modern California emigrant trail looks like but it just didn't feel right; a river without context is just a river. Likely I'll be moving away from specifically shooting the places of the past unless they have a context and grounding in present-day. Pioneers is not supposed to be a history lesson, even if the process of shooting researching this project has been profoundly educational and inspiring to me.
On a red-eye flight home tonight. Excited to get back to it and return some of this energy into my other personal projects located a whole lot closer to home and life as normal. I'm also supremely happy to be returning the rental and going back to my car-free citified-life; gas is crazy expensive (2 days ago in the middle of nowhere I was forced to buy $4.99/gal regular).
As promised here are a few more from the first half of scanned film from my recent Nevada trip for the Pioneers! O Pioneers! project. Come back for a whole bunch more next week once I'm back in NYC.
From top: Great Depression-era ghost town Metropolis, construction crane south of West Wendover, promises to come (golf course in the middle of nowhere) at Coyote Springs, and irrigation at dusk along US-93A near McGill.
(Earlier posts on the Pioneers project: I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII)
Over the last whirlwind week of production and editing I was only able to scan about half of the film from my recent side trip in Nevada for the Pioneers! project before heading down to sunny, swampy, humid Miami for a handful of shoots. Here are some of my early favorites from the Silver State. I'll be back with a few more on Monday.
From top: Cathedral Gorge state park, Las Vegas arts district, Black Canyon power lines, Bonneville salt flats, RV and hogs wind down hairpin curve to Hoover Dam.
(Earlier posts on the Pioneers project: I, II, III, IV, V, VI)
(Earlier posts on the Pioneers project: I, II, III, IV, V)
Keen eyes will notice that the above map, from a 4 a.m. planning session at the Wendover Motel 6, covers Nevada, our 36th state and home to my newest trip for the Pioneers! O Pioneers! project. I was sent to Vegas last week to shoot a feature story for a great new client and was able to tack on an extra week to tackle the Silver State (though I photographed a lot more gold activity both current and civil war-era). Tackle is really the right word... NV is damn large, the 7th largest actually, and I covered more than 1500 miles of it's circumference over the last few days.
What I found - I had never been outside of Vegas, the Hoover dam, and the interstates leading to/from the Grand Circle loop - is a beautiful and beautifully empty state (2/3rds lives in the Vegas metro area) with a lot of elevation, sand, and wind, a lot of history, natural beauty, and some weird bits, all of which is basically right in line with my project.
Similar to the feeling of leaving NYC to go anywhere and change pace, leaving the Vegas strip is also a great escape... and Monday morning I was up early heading north, gaining elevation, and headed through the Great Basin all the way up to the NE corner of the state. Along the way I was pulled over for speeding (god love these tiny towns who run the speed limit, on a 7% grade coming down a mountain, from 70mph to 25mph over the course of a 1/4 mile), narrowly missed a snow storm, and ran into a natural wonder to rival Utah's best (Cathedral Gorge is an insanely pretty place and should be a part of NPS).
For whatever reason, maybe because I stayed away from the tables the previous week, this third trip had luck... the afore-mentioned cop only gave me a warning (I was doing +12) and was a photography buff who was happy to chat and had suggestions. Beautiful and private property was always empty or relatively easy to access with something I could easily climb to get some height. The sky seemed to always clear (or a cloud suddenly blunt the midday sun) at opportune times. South of Reno I drove on maybe the most ridiculously fun public road I've ever experienced (I've driven A LOT) in US-120 going east of Mono Lake.
At times, as I found my cheap lodging well after dark, the following day's plan looked almost blank but somewhere/how I would run smack into a really juicy spot by just getting on the road early and trucking on, and through that the momentum stayed by my side, keeping the more natural long road trip companions of self-doubt and loathing in the back seat.
Whether or not the photographs will tease this luck further out remains to be seen of course, but I shot nearly all of my allotted film so there is a gitty in my up heading back to NYC. In general though the project is starting to form into a solid shape with specific themes: The west is big, the west is empty, nature is powerful and un-tameable, the west is useful, tourism shapes the west in strange ways, RV parks are bizarrely gravitating, the western cities are sprawling in mockery of the natural beauty steps beyond it's vague borders, the west is America, the west is freedom, the west is...
Likely each successive trip will be better than the last because I'll be that much better at finding pieces which fit together and getting closer to a body of work that hangs together. As much as I love driving and exploring the world, I want to be building something real with this project, something that has weight and scale. In Nevada I tried to find some evidence of what the modern California emigrant trail looks like but it just didn't feel right; a river without context is just a river. Likely I'll be moving away from specifically shooting the places of the past unless they have a context and grounding in present-day. Pioneers is not supposed to be a history lesson, even if the process of shooting researching this project has been profoundly educational and inspiring to me.
On a red-eye flight home tonight. Excited to get back to it and return some of this energy into my other personal projects located a whole lot closer to home and life as normal. I'm also supremely happy to be returning the rental and going back to my car-free citified-life; gas is crazy expensive (2 days ago in the middle of nowhere I was forced to buy $4.99/gal regular). 
I've been shooting a new project since the fall with a very un-sexy name (seriously anyone with something better than Specular Reflection give a brother some love in the comments!) Sexy or not, it's been a really fun and challenging essay to shoot because it crashes a few of my passions all together: architecture, the fun of wandering around NYC, and the fickle radiance of reflected light.
After moving here almost 2 years ago I wanted to work on something personal that was really grounded in the city. My first couple of ideas didn't really pan, but then one day I started thinking about something I once read about how a certain angle of light hitting some people's eye can cause them to instantly sneeze. Later I remembered my first trip to New York as a kid and the blinding brilliance of light I remember experiencing as I walked down the street on a sunny day with my grandfather. The light seemed so much brighter than Florida (which is saying something) because it came from every direction at once.
Specular Reflection is a homage to NYC and it's motley styles of architecture (and people) all lit by reflected sunlight. Finding the right light for the project is a challenge and I've missed a lot more images than I've made by arriving to a spot maybe 15 minutes too late (I have a notebook full of cross streets, times, and dates). Either the quality isn't right or maybe the size of reflection (if it's really big usually it doesn't look different enough from regular sunlight). Over the winter I've had tons of bluebird sunny days to shoot but of course everyone wears a big ugly dark coat and the project was stuck in idle. Now that spring is finally arrived I'm stepping on the gas and wearing out my New Balances.
So here's the beginning of Specular Reflection (seriously please help with the title).
In top secret news, and for those of you who hate my writing, I've actually been way more active on the JLP tumblr account (code name: Dixon), posting images from new projects and quite a few iPhone snaps. If some of you like to get down like that please join us over there. And speaking yet again about personal projects (basically my bag in 2011), Pioneers! was recently featured on New Landscape Photography (seen above), run by Willson Cummer (Thanks!)
Lastly, in travel news I'm heading south to the Sunshine State for work, family time, and sun on my pasty white body next week. I'll be all over Florida from April 11-22, so if any of you dear, sweet clients need something please give a shout.