Deon
Member
I was fortunate to grow up in an art-intensive environment. Throughout my youth I was enrolled in art classes at the Portland Art Museum and turned loose in the darkroom by the time I was seven. As a teenager, I assisted my father on commercial assignments and a series of photographic books of western states and lugged camera equipment and loaded film (Leica / Hasselblad) everywhere from floatplanes and fishing boats in Alaska, to horseback on ranches in Texas. After studying earth sciences in college, I picked up freelance assisting assignments with a variety of commercial photographers. During this time I also began a personal project documenting areas of the Great Basin Desert I felt drawn to. This body of work of remote and urban Nevada led to numerous state calendars and two books, NEVADA, and Las Vegas: Portrait of a City by Graphic Arts Center Publisher.
9/11 was a catalyst for my wife, Trish, and I to leave our urban life for a remote, ranching and mining community high in the mountains of the Great Basin Desert to pursue a rural, desert-informed aesthetic. Over thirteen years, we explored and documented the expanses of the Basin and Range, a region where distances are vast and the roads can be difficult to non-existent at best. What most people see as an endlessly expansive nothingness, I find utterly engrossing. While living in the center of the Great Basin Desert, I documented an expansive landscape, along with the vernacular discarded by ranching and mining.
In 2018, we sold the bank (our home) and thought we’d hit the road for a few months to explore where to live next. That adventure turned into 40 months of VanLife visiting 37 states and four provinces making photographs all along the way. We finally settled in the “Bosque” of the middle Rio Grande in New Mexico where I am now organizing all of those images from 13 years in the Great Basin along with images created on our 40 month road trip.
We have been in our house for almost three years now and I just finished converting the oversized attached garage into a analog darkroom with a Chomega D5XL4x5 color / Omega D5XL black and white with cold head, plus a digital darkroom (Mac Studio / Epson P6000) with a full framing shop (I have a show in a couple of months and it very busy in the studio right now). The pandemic and my age ended my location photography career, so I'm working on my art over everything else. I've sold all my commercial photographic equipment and have my favorite cameras only. Hasselblad Flexbody, 501c/m with 60mm f=3.5 CF, 100mm f=3.5 CF and 120mm f=4.0 CF. I also love creating with a Kodak panoramic 35 disposable I reload with Tri-X, my father's Leica M-4 and a Holge 120s. Yes, I do digital as well. Canon 5Dsr's with ts-e 17mm f=4.0, ts-e 50mm f=2.8 macro, 85mm f=1.4, 100mm f=2.8 macro. I just sold most of my Canon equipment as I had not used it in years.
Best!
Deon
9/11 was a catalyst for my wife, Trish, and I to leave our urban life for a remote, ranching and mining community high in the mountains of the Great Basin Desert to pursue a rural, desert-informed aesthetic. Over thirteen years, we explored and documented the expanses of the Basin and Range, a region where distances are vast and the roads can be difficult to non-existent at best. What most people see as an endlessly expansive nothingness, I find utterly engrossing. While living in the center of the Great Basin Desert, I documented an expansive landscape, along with the vernacular discarded by ranching and mining.
In 2018, we sold the bank (our home) and thought we’d hit the road for a few months to explore where to live next. That adventure turned into 40 months of VanLife visiting 37 states and four provinces making photographs all along the way. We finally settled in the “Bosque” of the middle Rio Grande in New Mexico where I am now organizing all of those images from 13 years in the Great Basin along with images created on our 40 month road trip.
We have been in our house for almost three years now and I just finished converting the oversized attached garage into a analog darkroom with a Chomega D5XL4x5 color / Omega D5XL black and white with cold head, plus a digital darkroom (Mac Studio / Epson P6000) with a full framing shop (I have a show in a couple of months and it very busy in the studio right now). The pandemic and my age ended my location photography career, so I'm working on my art over everything else. I've sold all my commercial photographic equipment and have my favorite cameras only. Hasselblad Flexbody, 501c/m with 60mm f=3.5 CF, 100mm f=3.5 CF and 120mm f=4.0 CF. I also love creating with a Kodak panoramic 35 disposable I reload with Tri-X, my father's Leica M-4 and a Holge 120s. Yes, I do digital as well. Canon 5Dsr's with ts-e 17mm f=4.0, ts-e 50mm f=2.8 macro, 85mm f=1.4, 100mm f=2.8 macro. I just sold most of my Canon equipment as I had not used it in years.
Best!
Deon
