| | | Michael Berman
Under a Dry Moon
"Under a Dry Moon"
100 Images of the Gran Desierto (Selections)
The Gran Desierto is seven thousand square miles of desert on the western border of Arizona and Sonora. Sand dunes and a shield volcano rise out of the sea of Cortez and float into open basins and thin granite ranges. A single paved road cuts across the desert. The land is hot, dry and has one great natural resource - empty space.
Empty space is not a thing that is often left alone. For this reason, when I think of pristine landscapes, I think of the bombing ranges scattered throughout the American West, and of the fragments of wildlands along the border with Mexico. In these places the matrix of soil still exists; a tire track or footprint pressed into the earth remains there. This simple thing - intact soil - reveals a complexity I find nowhere else.
The camera helps me stick in a place. It gives me the patience to look closely at things day after day, and to see what is there. I walk at night, and travel under the waning and waxing moon. Before I set out I carefully mark the location of my truck, and look for prominent features of the landscape I might later recognize. This is a ritual. In the dark the mountains that looked so high in daylight have the same scale as the small hills. The saguaros and big trees disappear. If I depended on this, I would get lost.
The desert is a mystery. Empty and vast, it is neither. It is a landscape filled with consequence, silence, and small miracles. I go to the desert to wander.
Michael Berman (January 2007)
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