“The first seven years of the Joshua tree's life, it's just a vertical stem. No branches," she told me while we were hiking. "It takes years before it blossoms. And every branching stem stops growing after it blossoms, so you've got this complex system of dead areas and new growth.” ≈ Karen M. McManus
"Teeter," original photograph made in 2013 and in this form from the 'America: Lost & Found' series, chronicling my travels around America while paying attention to the fading parts of it along the way. I was at Hidden Valley, inside Joshua Tree National Park. A ten day visit, a bitter cold; but utterly remarkable light enacting a sense of bliss at times in the stasis between one's bones shaking while being bathed in Mediterranean light.
A great, nearly egg-shaped, perfectly balanced forty foot boulder teeters on its perch, the same golden gray granite conglomerate stone found in his region of California. But this bed of stone is rather flat. It seems that it should roll over any minute, but remains in place in defiance of both gravity and winds. The skies are clear save for a few wispy clouds moving quickly that day, high above the surface of the park.
There's nothing like Joshua Tree National Park, or the Town of Joshua Tree in December.
The ‘America: Lost & Found’ series is in a way in two parts, in terms of the generations within that body of work, with me in photography mode. When I began building these digital composite images, the aim was of creating works which delivered a sense of looking at a much older form of photography. I began to gently nudge the modern, crisp digital photographs towards the era of daguerreotypes through to the original color photographs called Autochromes. They began commercially appearing around 1900.
So the borders of my ‘America: Lost & Found images often look worn, with areas of the image slightly out of focus, emulating the older imperfections of earlier technologies.
"Teeter," photo made 2013 from 'America: Lost & Found' series, Hidden Valley, Joshua Tree National Park. A ten day visit, a bitter cold; but utterly remarkable light. There's nothing like JTNP, or the Town of Joshua Tree in December
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#digitalcompositeimage #photography #joshuatree #nightbluesky 🦋
