Size: 7.5” x 7.5” on 8.5” x 11”

Signed & stamped in verso

During my last year in school during a class that was on the Zone System we took a semester end trip that started at the Salton Sea and ended along the Eastern Sierra. It was a magical time of wandering and exploring what it meant to be a landscape photographer. At one point I ran out of film and called my guy at the Samy’s Camera in Santa Barbara to have 100 rolls of Kodak T-max 100 shipped overnight to the tiny airport in Mammoth, CA.

There’s an inhibition during this time. A kind of creative freedom that stems from not knowing what art means to you yet. What it represents and what you want it to say. A lot of bad work gets produced, and one learns a thousand ways not to do it.

On the southern shore of Mono Lake I waded into thick caustic mud up to my knees to capture this. Mono Lake is bizarre place of contradictions, but it is very worth it if you’re in the area.

Location: Mono Lake, Eastern Sierra, 2004.

Technical Info: Hasselblad, Kodak T-Max 100 BW Film, Zeiss 50mm, Red #25, Polarizer, N+1 developed in Kodak X-tol 1:1