Death Valley
I found myself in Death Valley moving through the Valley from South to North. Death Valley has always held a fascination for me in its sheer scale and beauty. I had pulled off onto a small clearing by the side of the road, pulling off the main road in Death Valley is something that signs warn you not to do as soft ground can leave you stranded and once you are in this position with the distinct possibility of not having anybody pass you on the road for the rest of the day, it’s a dangerous manoeuvre at best.
I distinctly remember looking up from the dash and catching a glint of something far down the valley to my left, it was then that I decided to risk it and start carefully driving down the track that led in that direction. The town of Darwin itself is very hard to find and it was a my second visit to Death Valley trying to locate it, laying so far off the road along a very dusty track with no signs it is a place where it is very easy to pass it without ever knowing that it ever existed, very much the town that time forgot in many ways.
Darwin itself is a truly amazing place, and I really didn't know what to expect as I pulled onto the dirt track that carried me into this totally silent abandoned area in the middle of the valley. It was early evening, and the sky was a golden colour as the heat haze dropped in front of me making viewing anything in the distance across the valley floor very difficult. 6 miles off the main road quite literally in the middle of absolutely nowhere I came across the town sat in the base of the mountains, abandoned and shrouded in the sheer deafening silence that you experience only in places like Death Valley, a barrier across the track warning me to stay out.
I loved shooting in Darwin with all the amazing items and homes that have literally just been left behind as they stood many years ago, the rich textures and the amazing light that you get in Death Valley made the project one that was very inspiring for me creatively as a photographer. I believe that as a professional photographer, 'personal work' is something that’s very important to do each year, it in many ways offers us the freedom to express ourselves more through our work than perhaps day to day commercial work can with its demands and constraints. This entire body of work in Darwin was shot on a rangefinder camera and one lens, with nothing else at all, just myself and the camera to capture what I saw before me.
I think the three main things that will remain with me always from my visit there was the sheer deafening silence as the sun dropped across the valley and left me and the town in darkness, the US Army truck with the bullet hole in the windscreen parked out of sight, and noticing that every clock that I came across had stopped at 4:20 on Sunday the 13th even though they were all 'mechanical'…
