Let me encourage you to get out to the Kelso Depot in the Mojave National Preserve. Once inside this historic visitor center drop downstairs to the Desert Light gallery for a great photographic exhibition.
Michael E. Gordon has become our latest Artist in Residence for the Mojave National Preserve, an award-winning fine art landscape photographer of unusual and overlooked natural landscapes of California and beyond. A lifelong student of nature and wilderness, Michael’s intimate relationship with the landscape yields photographs of great depth and clarity. He is best known for his black and white ‘Desert’ series which, says Broughton Quarterly, portrays “stunning ethereal beauty from terrain where others see only a bleak landscape.”
Michael’s photographs have been published in and on the covers of magazines, calendars, textbooks and music CD’s. He is represented by art galleries in the U.S. and Europe, and his fine art prints are held internationally in private collections. Publications and clients include Backpacker magazine; View Camera magazine; Rangefinder magazine; Broughton Quarterly; T-Mobile; The Wilderness Society; Campaign for America’s Wilderness; USDA Forest Service; Brooks/Cole, Body-Mind Music, and more. Awards and recognition include International Photography Awards, Prix de la Photographie, Paris, and Black & White Spider Awards.
Michael’s love for and commitment to the preservation of imperiled landscapes makes him an excellent leader in the National Park Service Artist in Residence program. For his Joshua thematic he trained his 4”x5” view camera and film on the unique form and curious feel of the Mojave Joshua Tree.
Mormon settlers traveling across the Mojave Desert in the mid-19th century found that the awkwardly outstretched limbs of the Joshua portrayed a prayer metaphor to guide them towards the Promised Land. One hundred and fifty years later, today’s Mojave Desert travelers remain as captivated as ever by the Joshua tree, and tourists often pose for snapshots beside prized roadside specimens.
Michael’s work provides a strong depth with this thoughtful thematic. To achieve a sense of timelessness, he employs a 4×5” large format view camera, a century-old diffused focus portrait lens, and black and white film. His Limited Edition prints are archival carbon pigment inks on mould-made German cellulose paper.
Beyond his excellent grasp of craft, Gordon portrays a deep understanding and relationship to what some might consider as pedestrian images. His points of view and sense of the desert light reveal a desert icon plant in human terms. As you spend time in the quiet gallery, you find yourself enmeshed in images that vary in emotional tone from anxiety to simple standalone beauty. The tension between images causes the viewer to reexamine the exhibit several times and when you leave the gallery, the desert is now part of your mental woodwork.
So, get out there and experience Michael Gordon’s work. Get out there and explore the Mojave Preserve.
