Oakesdale, Washington 1997
Made in 1997 while in Eastern Washington in the earlier years of shooting the Wheat country called "The Palouse" in the 8 x 10 inch format. This series was made hand held with a Super Wide Hasselblad camera as a result of believing that I should loosen up the structure of the series work I had been making until then. My interest had been mostly in urban places( Nantucket, Yountville, etc.) comparing newer areas to those that had been made more individualized by owners over a longer period of time. The Oakesdale Cemetery sits on a hill surrounded by the wheat fields I had been photograping and is a far more emotional response to a place. My good friend Robert Gooblar was very sick and would die the following year. He was very much on my mind as I walked around this utopia of a cemetery on a hill on a hot mid afternoon day in July.
The Oakesdale series has been shown and published many times now but the original sixteen prints were made conventionally in a darkroom, are selenium toned and are about 12 inches square.
