Dest. 1,458'

North Dakota Work Featured Over at Aint-Bad Magazine

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:38:20 -0700

It’s been a year since I shot in ND, the work has been well-received and it’s good to see it featured thanks to the folks at Aint-Bad Magazine.

Aperture Remixed: Soth on Adams

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 17:47:06 -0800

http://www.aperture.org/2012/11/alec-soth-summer-nights-at-the-dollar-tree/

Good interview with Alec Soth on influence & his interpretation of a work that influenced him, Robert Adams’ Summer Nights.

“Photography is a language. To communicate, you need to learn the language. The history of photography is like the vocabulary and influence is like a dialect. One shouldn’t be embarrassed about having an accent. That said, it has been important for me to reevaluate those influences as the years go by.”

An Extra Ingredient in North Dakota Politics: Oil

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 13:33:17 -0700

An Extra Ingredient in North Dakota Politics: Oil:

An oil boom has changed the economic outlook for North Dakota; the boom’s effect on the state’s political situation is still emerging.

2,000 New Millionaires a Year in N.D.

Wed, 03 Oct 2012 20:04:19 -0700

2,000 New Millionaires a Year in N.D.

Video

Sat, 22 Sep 2012 19:04:00 -0700

Bus stop in Stanley, ND, another boomtown in the Bakken.

Wed, 12 Sep 2012 19:49:46 -0700

Bus stop in Stanley, ND, another boomtown in the Bakken.

Photo shoot with William T. Vollmann this morning. Kent was...

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:32:36 -0700

Photo shoot with William T. Vollmann this morning. Kent was photographing him for the German publication of Europe Central, which has been translated there for the first time. I was supposed to go to his studio a year ago today to hang out, but today also happens to be my second wedding anniversary, and so when he called last year Sarah and I were in San Francisco celebrating #1. Funny it worked out like that. After telling him our first born came along two weeks ago and of Sarah, who is a math teacher, he joked, “Well, it looks like you learned how to multiply.” I’ll probably send a copy of the Minnewaukan essay his way, and maybe do some silver-printing at his studio sometime in the future (he’s a film guy, mentioned that he was making some gum-bichromate prints from 11x14 negatives the day before).

Greetings From Williston, North Dakota

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:33:00 -0700

Greetings From Williston, North Dakota:

Nice longread from Men’s Journal Magazine of Williston. (click title to read)

Home Stretch

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:58:17 -0700

It’s been a busy month around here in a lot of ways. Not too long after I had the photo essay from Minnewaukan published my wife gave birth to our first, a handsome little man named Ian Thomas Lanning. There’s still much to go through from the trip, and over the next month I plan to focus on the work from the oil country. Many of the first-pass winners are up, but now I’m going to focus on constructing that work in a similar fashion to the way the Minnewaukan essay looks and feels.

An update from the YouTube user lasvegascollapse, whose videos I watched to get a sense of Williston before traveling there: he quit his oil job and went back to his family in Las Vegas. In this video he describes walking into the office of the company to give them his two week’s notice. He is told to pack up and clear out immediately. In this video he describes why he quit. Reasons include damage to his health, the rigor of the work & hours in the oil field, and a sense that he needed to be back with his family. Apparently there’s some light in the Las Vegas real estate market, and he’s going to try to make that work again. Best wishes to him.

Going forward I hope to knock the rest of the work out in smaller, more manageable sections before putting it all together as a final product. I’ll keep posting, of course, in the meantime. Then it’ll be time to move on to the next.

Fracking tower and discount cigarette store near Williston.

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 11:39:15 -0700

Fracking tower and discount cigarette store near Williston.

Time to Reassess Peak Oil

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 09:21:08 -0700

“There are, we now know, monstrous deposits in the US. One estimate suggests that the Bakken shales in North Dakota contain almost as much oil as Saudi Arabia (though less of it is extractable). And this is one of 20 such formations in the US.”

George Monbiot has a very interesting article about the oil supply up. He argues that though we’ve taken to believing that oil is on its way out due to lack of supply, recent developments tell another story. As Doug Henwood mentioned, the fracking and burning of the shale’s proceeds is an environmental disaster… more so given that there is no end in sight. Indeed, U.S. oil production is on the rise, and may be the world’s #2 producer by 2020.

The work I did in Williston focuses on the people going to North Dakota for work and is less about these geopolitical and economic issues directly… but it all does of course lead to these big conversations.

You can red the article by clicking this link or clicking the title above.

Ian Thomas Lanning, born 7.10.12 at 1:16 a.m. My boy.

Wed, 11 Jul 2012 22:19:42 -0700

Ian Thomas Lanning, born 7.10.12 at 1:16 a.m. My boy.

Here’s the USGS data table on the rise of Devils Lake....

Sun, 01 Jul 2012 10:35:48 -0700

Here’s the USGS data table on the rise of Devils Lake. Note the dust bowl era low, how it took over 40 years to reach that point, and the sharp spike beginning after 1993 which has lifted the lake more than 30 feet.

Submerged farm. Some of these are showing up in black and white...

Sat, 30 Jun 2012 01:17:08 -0700

Submerged farm. Some of these are showing up in black and white for now, I’m playing with the mix of color and black and white for the whole project. In a situation such as this, harsh light and rather monochromatic colors in the scene make the switch from a limited range in color value to shades in tonality preferable, most obvious in the lake water between the dead trees and their reflections. Had I been here with better light the color would have been more appealing, but that’s just something that goes with covering such a large area in short time. To some extent you can wait things out, but in this case and others, the light wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Before meeting Ann I had been shooting in her neighborhood. I...

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:33:41 -0700

Before meeting Ann I had been shooting in her neighborhood. I saw this emerging development off Hwy. 19, big spaces between lots, no fences, the kind of thing you never see in California. It’s all built on high ground, above the threat level. You see this all around the area, which only makes sense… people choosing to live and build on the other side of the roads from the lake, as many of the roads that cross the lake now double as levees. And I have to add that, given it had rained the day before, that un-compacted dirt road you see there, snaking through, was no fun to drive on in a Corolla, especially near the water, as the slick mud makes the car jut sideways and back again. It feels like you’re driving on ice.

Scenes From Minnewaukan: July Issue of "Under the Gum Tree"

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:42:03 -0700

Fourteen images from the Minnewaukan, ND area have now been published in photo essay form in the small magazine Under the Gum Tree for its July issue. All told that’s 28 pages, and I’m thankful to them for publishing every picture I sent them. You can buy the magazine in digital form for $4.99, or in print for $22, you can also obtain both for $25 here or through their site, underthegumtree.com/. Below are some low-res versions of the spreads. My thanks to Natana Prudhomme and the editors at Under the Gum Tree.

Child’s Fort Version. One of many versions of this....

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 09:05:00 -0700

Child’s Fort Version. One of many versions of this. Un-spotted, still editing, etc. The version printed in the magazine was shot the day before, when I found it, with the 7D because I thought it was going to rain (I didn’t even bring the 4x5). After filling up my card that day I came back the next, got a half dozen on film. I was able to pick up more blue in the lake that day. Shortly after this I took the photos of Allan, who was buzzing around in his trailer-equipt 4-wheeler picking up junk (he took the bike).

Off Hwy. 19, Ramsey County.

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:26:18 -0700

Off Hwy. 19, Ramsey County.

Basement mural in Minnewaukan. Several photos from Minnewaukan...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 22:09:21 -0700

Basement mural in Minnewaukan. Several photos from Minnewaukan will appear in photo essay form in a small magazine called Under the Gum Tree. I’ll have a link to the issue soon. You can check out their website now @ http://underthegumtree.com/

Shoreline field.

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 00:11:49 -0700

Shoreline field.