Before Forever
“The force of the argument, that the open America we loved is gone, comes from our shock at the state of the current West.
When else has a region of more than a million square miles been so damaged in so short a time?”
~Robert Adams, in the introduction to “The American Space.”
Montezuma Hills and environs was the inspiration for my decision to pursue landscape photography beginning in in the early 1980s. Geological survey maps revealed an extensive rural district close to my home in Berkeley – the California Delta, at the convergence of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. What struck me then was the serenity of the region’s undulating hills, tended by ranchers to graze their sheep and cattle, the wild borders that provide habitat to the many wild species, the visual polyphony of fences and roads defining the view. These became the foundational elements of my visual language for this initial exploration into serious landscape photography. The minimalist geography provides stark contrast to more conventional landscape tropes of high drama, rugged mountains, and grand vistas. With its gentle contours, subtle skies, muted palette, the region speaks of a more personal, intimate relationship with the land, qualities to which I am instinctively drawn. These photographs are now part of my new series revisiting this region, titled “Before Forever” in recognition of the potential drastic change that may happen here with the “California Forever” development project.
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