All of the negatives used here are from a trip in Spring '96.
I went to FotoFest in Houston, Texas, which was kind of a waste of time, but the trip back to SF was the best part...

On the left, an abandoned storefront - i came around a street corner in this totally deserted, dying town somewhere in Arizona, and there it was. The store is closed... someone has painted a landscape on the plywood covering the windows... I took one frame of several sections of the block - this frame really 'captured something', and somewhere in the post-proofing stage, it got hooked with the 'silhouette'/outline of an Indian dwelling made of stone, at the top right.

The negative has no shadow detail ( it is late in the day) and i left/preffered it that way - and it ends up working fine - if i *had* shadow detail, it would 'get in the way'. This 'outline'/silhouette and the abandoned storefront create an 'arc' of sorts across the picture, from left to upper right - i start, & print that - i expose 3 sheets with these 2 negs - i am *committed* - and i have an idea of what it is i am 'seeing': " ....We come to the desert, we build, & we abandon - and the desert 'reclaims' itself.....(dust to dust, ashes to ashes.."?). The indians, that built the stone dwelling? ....we know very little about... In the future, our 'ruins' will be examined, and probably the 'examiner' will understand just as little about us... But there is the 'connection' of our human existence ( and our desire to"build! conquer!! " etc etc...) hence the 'arc' of the two buildings... At this point, i remember i felt stumped - what was going on was really strong, but what really 'finishes it'?...

I actually covered the trays and 'slept on' this one - i was totally vexed! I actually developed 1 of the 3 'finals' just to really *look* at what was there( only 2 prints left...). Still vexed,.... very...VERY vexed!.... and sifting thru proof sheets. At another point in the same 1 week trip, i chased something i find fascinating - it happens when the low light of end of day casts incredibly long shadows of the mountains over the playas (long,loooong stretches of 'open desert') - it makes these great patterns of shadows...and the 'space', to me,.. is truly 'awe'-ful.... but it is really hard to find a point of view to "catch" what you see - the space is so vast, and the roads so few, and limiting, getting a shot that really nails it is very hard... i did end up with one or two frames i liked. ..and when i put one of them in the enlarger, and matched the horizon line up with the 'horizon line' of the paintings on the plywood, it just 'fit', exactly - I didn't need a fancy filter... or any 'effect' - the answer was in the 'reality' i had already 'seen' (sort of), but not fully realized.