Today, the classical, mid-century 'Far West' is almost impossible to see with the naked eye. All its coordinates have been erased. But 'Far West' still signifies a landscape to my mind and it can be rediscovered. Through photographic art, I can look through a present-day, heavily-populated landscape and into one that has all but disappeared, recovering continuity where it couldn't otherwise be seen. We might look for the 'Far West' in off-the-main-highway small towns. Ubi sunt, where are they now, the rakishly-behatted gent making his way to a Spanish-facaded bank; where the proprietor of the 'Antigue' shop stepping out on a glaringly hot midday? I saw them in the last mid-century and still I feel their shadows at my back. 

If still looking for the Far West, then it persists unaltered in the Owens Valley, preserved intact because bounded by the California Sierra Nevada range in the west and in the east by the Inyo (White) Mountains.  Beyond is Death Valley with which the Owens has much in common. There is an unpremeditatedness in the Owens Valley which is the direct opposite of fashion: the new, the make-do and the weathered all cohabit in time and space.  There is also elemental light and the silent immutability and continuity of landscape. 

'Redwood Jct' 1961, Gelatin silver print

Feather River 1991, Gelatin silver print

The Shard, Alabama Hills 2006, Gelatin silver print

Taos NM 1996, Archival pigment print

Ulysses Lands at Oakland Pier 1957 (First Transcontinental No 1), Gelatin silver print

First Transcontinental No 3 1991, Gelatin silver print

First Transcontinental No 4 1991, Gelatin silver print

First Transcontinental No 5, 1991 Gelatin silver negative

Now You See It: Road-Runner and Last Narrow-Gauge Train, Keeler 1959, Gelatin silver print

Eccentrics, Mt Whitney 1991, Archival pigment print

'De Pue' 1992, Gelatin silver print

'Sierra Talc,' Owens Valley No 8 1959, Gelatin silver print

Keeler, Owens Valley No 5 1959, Gelatin silver print

'300 Years Too Soon,' Owens Valley 2007, Archival pigment print

High Desert 1991, Gelatin silver print