The Way West

An ongoing fine-art series of wet plate images from the Columbia River Gorge and beyond.

Columbia Center for the Arts Exhibition. August 2023

For most of my adult life, I have found comfort in packing bags and traveling throughout the U.S. for photography assignments. Sometimes I go places simply out of curiosity. The motion becomes comfortable and the interactions with strangers keep me seeking more assignments. But my work life shut down in the spring of 2020. I was home and the calendar was relatively empty. Perhaps, I thought, this was a good time to experiment with a different type of photography.

I grew up in the South and attended a small University in Lexington, Virginia, where I volunteered at an education center that had been Sally Mann’s childhood home. Mann is a fine- art photographer known for her sometimes-haunting black-and-white images taken with old antique view cameras. She is, by many critics, one of the most prestigious and accomplished photographers of her generation. I have always admired her work and her approach to fine-art storytelling.

For most of my adult life, I have found comfort in packing bags and traveling throughout the U.S. for photography assignments. Sometimes I go places simply out of curiosity. The motion becomes comfortable and the interactions with strangers keep me seeking more assignments. But my work life shut down in the spring of 2020. I was home and the calendar was relatively empty. Perhaps, I thought, this was a good time to experiment with a different type of photography.

I grew up in the South and attended a small University in Lexington, Virginia, where I volunteered at an education center that had been Sally Mann’s childhood home. Mann is a fine- art photographer known for her sometimes-haunting black-and-white images taken with old antique view cameras. She is, by many critics, one of the most prestigious and accomplished photographers of her generation. I have always admired her work and her approach to fine-art storytelling.

The wet plate process was the main form of photography through the 1800s and early 1900s. It begins by adding a layer of collodion to a plate of glass and then submersing that coated glass into a silver nitrate mix, causing the plate to become light sensitive. While under a red light, the glass plate is put into a film holder. I use an old 4x5 field camera to expose the plate. Returning to my makeshift darkroom in the back of my truck, I develop the plate and ‘fix’ it, allowing the plate to be removed from the darkroom. It’s a messy process. My clothes and skin are stained brown. The chemicals often do not do what I want. I pour too much. The wind blows too hard. Unwanted streaks cover the image. I don’t know why things happen the way they do but the results feel magical.

As Covid life set in, I began to explore my own method of documenting my home. How can a river be so complex? The same waters that carry remnants of our flushed and buried mistakes also provide refuge for a species that despite many hurdles, or dams, continue to fight to return home. A series of falls where salmon surrendered to waiting nets now rests at the bottom of a dark pool. A world of past and present collisions in a complicated scene where perhaps the British historian was only half right. The South is not the only American landscape that has suffered the weight of defeat. Tangled, unpredictable images appear on a plate of glass under the red light of my headlamp.

The Columbia River’s appeal stems not just from its beauty, but also from the intricate dance of time and societal influences, which persistently mold its ever-changing legacy.