Featured Artist...Stuart McCall

This week we receive work through the eyes of Stuart McCall, a Vancouver, BC based photographer, who shows us his panoramic scenes of the deserts of Nevada and northern Mexico.

He began his career as a commercial photographer in 1982. Since then, his images have been published widely, featured in  Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Saturday Night, Photography Monthly, Boston Globe, Times of London, as well as in books by National Geographic and Douglas & McIntyre. His work has been recognized by Communication Arts, the Lotus Awards, and International Photography awards.

"The desert has fascinated me for some time.  It is a place where the climate and environment are quite incompatible with human survival.  Scarcity of water, and extremes of heat and cold are typical…  Yet people have been inhabiting and trying to make a living in deserts since time immemorial. Many come, but few stay on.   The extremes of climate have the ability to preserve traces of past activity in a remarkable way that is not so much the case in wetter or more moderate climate.  Structures, roads, footpaths, machinery, fences, and garbage heaps tend to linger on in an unnatural way, far beyond what their creators anticipated.  I have for the past several years developed a keen interest in remains left behind and eventually becoming a part of the landscape.  The deserts of western North America are wonderful places to study this." 

He completed his series of desert scenes in 2010, using small digital equipment as series of overlapping frames,combined in post-production,creating a seamless panoramic image that really shows it better effect here .  He has been experimenting with this technique for a couple of years and found the possibility of extremely high image quality with the convenience of small format appealing.

"The desert has fascinated me for some time.  It is a place where the climate and environment are quite incompatible with human survival.  Scarcity of water, and extremes of heat and cold are typical…  Yet people have been inhabiting and trying to make a living in deserts since time immemorial. Many come, but few stay on.   The extremes of climate have the ability to preserve traces of past activity in a remarkable way that is not so much the case in wetter or more moderate climate.  Structures, roads, footpaths, machinery, fences, and garbage heaps tend to linger on in an unnatural way, far beyond what their creators anticipated.  I have for the past several years developed a keen interest in remains left behind and eventually becoming a part of the landscape.  The deserts of western North America are wonderful places to study this." 

Stuart has several projects which have been in various exhibitions . Hos work continues to evolve with his current approach.

" The notion of a planet absent of human beings has been of interest for some time, and has been cause for expression in my work.  While many imagine a future where man and nature will return to a state of equilibrium, my current work considers a world where nature is gradually reversing the effects of a brief encounter with humanity."
More of his work can be seen  here