Crimson Plains

Where the political map is a deep red

In November 2008 power in American politics swung from the Republicans to the Democrats with the historic election of Barack Obama. A look at the changing political map of the US showed a shift towards the Democrats for some traditionally right leaning States. However a close look revealed that certain counties in some States remained as committed as ever to their Republican roots.
With a vote of ninety per cent in favour of the incumbent Republican government, these counties, north of Amarillo, Texas, were truly the Red States.

I traveled to these most republican of places the week of the presidential inauguration in January 2009 and made this series of portraits at this important time of change.


Deindustrialisation

Once the industrial heartland of manufacturing in the US and largest industrial region in the world.

Once the industrial heartland of manufacturing in the US and largest industrial region in the world. Big steel, auto manufacturing and mining were the backbone of the area until the decline through the recession of the early 80’s. The high cost of unionised labour and cheaper foreign imports impacted heavily. Factory closures left a still visible reminder of a lost era and a scar on the landscape that led to the regions unfortunate label.
The harsh, unrelenting cold of winter seems only to accentuate the departure of optimism. In fact many of the workers diversified and migrated to jobs in the south, which became known as the Sun Belt. The financial crash of 2008 has only exacerbated the problem.


A View To The End

Forty plus miles of unremarkable road. The final journey of the condemned.

Forty plus miles of unremarkable road. Meandering through tree lined Texan roads with the occasional signs of life.

Periodic splashes of utilitarian roadside architecture. The soulless signs of everyday life.

Gas stations, Dollar stores, billboards shouting their offerings. A slice of quotidian American life. Little to see except that it will be the last thing a person sees.

The many churches possibly speak loudest to what’s occurring here. In a land who’s maxim is an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth this road represents the final journey of the condemned as they are transferred from death row to the execution chamber in Huntsville, Tx.

At 6pm that day the prisoner will be executed by lethal injection as a group of witnesses looks on.

Texas executes more people than any other State. In 2018 when these photographs were made 13 men and women were executed.

A request to photograph the final room was denied due to the current administrations directive.


The Atomic Age

One of the most destructive and important happenings of the twentieth century

The Manhattan Project was one of the most destructive and important happenings of the twentieth century. A giant secret undertaking to build the worlds first atomic bomb during the Second World War . These photographs depict three aspects of the dawn of the Atomic Age.

The training airfield in Wendover, Utah. This is where the crew trained and the now near derelict hanger that once housed the Enloa Gay B29 aircraft still stands.

The Trinity site in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert where the first ever nuclear device was detonated in July 1945 as a test a few weeks before the bombing of Hiroshima in Japan. The heat generated turned sand to glass and made a substance called Trinitite still found on the government restricted site.

Enola Gay crew member Morris R Jeppson at his home shortly before his death.


Of Biblical Proportions

These places of miraculous happenings observed in the modern age.

Where Moses stood and and saw the Promised Land for the first time; handily there’s a diarama to show you it now.

The Sea of Galilee where Jesus was said to walk on water; now you can slide on the water down a blue shoot.

The Burning Bush which now has it’s very own fire extinguisher.

The top of mount Sinai, where Moses was said to receive the Ten Commandments; A Bedouin boy wears a Chelsea football top in a nod to the new religion.

These places of miraculous happenings observed in the modern age.

 

Photographed in Jordan, Egypt and Israel


Master Planned Community

The incompatible landscape.


Greasewood

"Beside the water"


The Meadows

A selection of stills from the upcoming documentary feature - The Meadows.

Screenings to begin 2024.

Personal documentary projects


The Landscape Of Lust

Striking a discordant note.

Drive through many cities in the US and you will find a corner where the female form is exploited to generate income.

Designed to showcase their wares in the darker hours of the night these temples to voyeurism and lust look incongruous in the bright light of day.


The Meadows Edge

Barely a hundred years have seen this tiny Mormon mission post swell into a city of two million people.

Las Vegas (The Meadows) sits nestled in the Mohave Desert. Barely a hundred years have seen this tiny Mormon mission post swell into a city of two million people. Think of this place and you will no doubt picture the grandiose hotel casinos and all their trappings. Yet there is another Las Vegas; out there at it’s edge, where its ceaseless expansion encroaches on the yielding arid land, attempting to swallow up the vast desert that surrounds it.
The building boom of the 2000’s made Las Vegas one of the fastest growing cities in the USA with over forty per cent growth in 10 years. This created an insatiable appetite for new homes for people migrating here from all over the country. Developers met this demand by creating master planned communities, gated estates, country clubs, and recreational spaces. All with improbable sounding names; Tuscan Hills, Sienna Heights, Renaissance Manor…

For a short while the desert could sleep as the onslaught of this modern American suburban utopia took a break. However Las Vegas is booming once more and well on its way to becoming Americas hottest city as climate change takes hold.