| The southwest region of the U.S. gets shot to death. Most art critics, gallerists or serious collectors, when first told of where I live, and that I travel around to shoot, immediately have the mindset of “Oh, you do landscapes. Regional photography, particularly that of the desert has been covered extensively.” In response I gently nod, with a somewhat earnest smile and think, because of their position and who they are, they need to think they’ve seen it all before. Journey West Exhibit was born from a call to artists issued by the Tucson Airport Authority asking for work under the sublimely themed title, Super.Natural. | 
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Tom Kiefer
Tom Kiefer, Motel Noir, 2006. Archival digital print from black-and-white negative, 24 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist.The southwest region of the U.S. gets shot to death. Most art critics, gallerists or serious collectors, when first told of where I live, and that I travel around to shoot, immediately have the mindset of “Oh, you do landscapes. Regional photography, particularly that of the desert has been covered extensively.” In response I gently nod, with a somewhat earnest smile and think, because of their position and who they are, they need to think they’ve seen it all before. Journey West Exhibit was born from a call to artists issued by the Tucson Airport Authority asking for work under the sublimely themed title, Super.Natural.
While there is often an elegiac tone to the work I do, the implied sense of myth and mysticism mixed with the landscape and nature seemed to be a perfect fit with the realness a traditional camera and film can capture. So in the spirit of what Judy and Mickey did a half a dozen times before many years ago, a “show” was born, this show being the road between where I live and the airport in Tucson, about 120 miles away. To my surprise, and I do mean this, something happened along the way. I read that at the end of a journey, a new one begins. Seems like a tease but maybe that’s why I continue.
The project has grown into a three-part series. The first, as presented here, is of the roads from Tucson to Ajo, a small somewhat woebegone former mining town. The second part is of the travels and would-be commute from Tucson to Phoenix, a region that has lent itself to being shot to death but is now known as rapidly disappearing under-developed real estate, and lastly, to complete the trilogy and a somewhat perfect triangle on the map as viewed from above via Google Earth, Phoenix to Ajo.
I call it a strange beauty, the things encountered that seemingly demand to be shot. As allegory, the story seems to be one of loss, abandonment, and survival. But something else is going on. A certain quietude of the landscape is still out there, but what has been done and what we are doing creates another dynamic that is equally fascinating and disturbing. This is where it becomes personal, and I’m drawn into these moments that really need to be recorded, or so it seems; I’m not always sure. What is there is hope and folly, grace and sadness, and all that gets left behind.
