A while back I heard from my artist friend Rich Cali. Hadn’t spoken in quite a while. Said he’d moved to Kingston, New York, and opened a gallery, would like to put me on the calendar for an exhibition. I was thrilled. I’d been to Kingston and loved it. And I was happy for Rich. He’s a great artist and his space is perfect—clean, quaint, unassuming little spot that he’s doing fantastic things in.

I hadn’t shown any prints from A PLAIN VIEW since 2019 and so thought this a great opportunity to share a few from the book again.

On display is seven 40x50-inch prints and seven 17x22-inch prints, most from editions and a few artist proofs that have never been shown.

Wonderful turnout. Met some nice folks, sold some prints (thank you!).

I knew that while in Kingston I’d want to walk with the Nikon 28ti and make some photos, as a sort of Morning Walks “Kingston Edition”.

3 rolls of exposed Gold 200 came home with me.

Incredible walk the morning of my opening. Walked about aimlessly for roughly 2 hours, and then made some pictures the following day on my way out of town to JFK for the flight back home.

Kingston is wonderful, and its bedraggled but handsome lushness. Its cracks and inconsistencies show, and they show beautifully. As does its history. It’s romantic. And strange. Rough and idyllic, tired and alive. And its thick air sucks you in, keeps you stuck there, comfortably. A slow, peaceful ride.

Hudson Valley is unique, its own place. And everyone I met remarkably friendly.

If you’d like to see the show, it’s up through July 2 at Monument.

For now, a selection of the 35mm Kingston (and outskirts) pictures:

Jason LeeJune 16, 2022Comment

Morning Walks

When I was living up in the hills near Griffith Park between 2008 and 2010 I’d occasionally bring on walks my Nikon 28ti 35mm pocket camera and make pictures of the neighborhoods, primarily with black-and-white films. A handful of those photos were published for the first time in my 2020 book IN THE GOLD DUST RUSH, five of which can be seen here:

Moved from that house and didn’t keep up such camera walks elsewhere. But these many years later I find myself back in the Los Feliz area. And again with a 28ti on what has been daily walks.

Felt compelled to continue and to perhaps create a broader and more detailed view of this Los Angeles. And now in color.

I’d never used much Kodak Gold 200 before these recent photo walks but I absolutely love it. Wonderful film. Happy I chose it for this project. And the lab I’m using for these photos is Fromex in San Gabriel. Same-day service and beautiful scans.

As I often do when I’m out on the road with the cameras, I like to revisit locations on the walks too. Each day I find new routes but occasionally revisiting spots to see things newly and perhaps in different lighting or under a different sky can be interesting.

Corner Tree 2

Corner Tree 3

Eventually I’ll pull some selections from these walks and put a book together.

But for now I’ll be making postcard sets available - LINK.

Jason LeeMay 12, 2022Comment

Galveston

It’s a wonderful thing, photography.

As I’ve written about in previous journal entries here on my site, I started making photographs from the road in 2006.

I’d been making photographs in a studio setting for about four years before that, but once I’d had enough of my time confined but certainly satisfied with all I’d been learning, it began to make sense the idea of bringing the cameras out on the road.

And I’d do just that, sometime in 2006, with my old 8x10 Century Universal field camera and a handful of boxes of color and black-and-white 8x10 Polaroid films - I’d been using the big Polaroid films in the studio and thought it might be interesting to use them outside in natural settings. I was hooked.

And since then, and while never having looked back, the amount of miles I’ve covered by car are uncountable, as are the exposures I’ve made along the way. It’s amazing what happens when one finds the direction in which they ought to be moving.

There’s just something about being on the road, something almost indescribable, cameras and film in the back seat, music playing, unsure of what lay around one corner to the next but open to whatever it may be. A kind of invigoration lives there.

As photographer Henry Wessel put it, photographing “has to do with the discipline of being receptive. It is a physical sensation. You are not looking for something. You are open, receptive. At some point you are in front of something that you cannot ignore.”

So very true.

While most of my exposures from the road have been made west of the Mississippi, I’ve had the pleasure of making a few photographs in other places, as well - New York City and State, New Orleans, Florida.

But many trips back and forth between California and Texas over the years, and some up to Oregon. Still so much of America to explore, but what I’ve been able to see and document thus far has been an absolute treat.

And now I’m happy to include photographs from Galveston, Texas, to my growing collection of American photographs.

Between the months of January and April of 2017 I roamed Texas sporadically with my old Speed Graphic 4x5 camera for what turned out to be 25 days and roughly 5000 miles. I’d moved to Texas just two years prior and thought it only made sense to see more of the big state than I’d seen before as a visiting photographer. And so I did. Up into the Panhandle, a bit east, central, south, and West Texas. 111 of the 298 exposures I made would end up being printed in the 2018 book A PLAIN VIEW. But no matter how many miles and real estate I’d covered on those travels, I never thought to make it far enough south to meet Galveston. And then, perhaps ironically, Galveston Historical Foundation contacted me in May of 2020 to see if I might like to extend my “Texas series” by making photographs in Galveston for a book to be published on the occasion of the foundation’s 2021 sesquicentennial. I was happy to accept the offer, as perhaps the whole of my Texas story had yet to be completed. And so that November I drove my car from Los Angeles, where I was living once more, to Galveston with my cameras, in the passenger seat my friend and fellow photographer Raymond Molinar who would assist me in my efforts to document as strange and beautiful a land as I’d ever seen while also making not only behind-the-scenes photographs of my process but his own photographs of this remarkably standstill place. An invigorating experience. And one that left me with a book that I’m quite fond of—indeed a companion of sorts to the mainland Texas photographs before it.

Preorder a copy HERE.

Many thanks for the continued support, and to all those who’ve already preordered.

A few frames from Galveston:

Jason LeeJune 3, 2021Comment

Black-and-White/The New Book

I’ve written before about my first photographic outings back in 2006/7 in California.

I’d made photographs in the field before and after acquiring the studio I had in Los Angeles in the early 2000s where I spent a great deal of time experimenting with lighting and various film types, trying to understand film and its characteristics, but not many. There are a handful of 35mm color slide rolls in my archives beginning in 2002 but they don’t mean much — typical beginner rolls with the new camera I’d gotten, exposed primarily to see how it would all turn out. Nonetheless, having that first 35mm camera was exciting, even if only as a tourist of sorts.

One of the film types I was frequently using in the studio was 8x10 Polaroid — I was making a lot of portraits and using it to experiment with various types of lighting and so forth. Black-and-white and color.

Such incredible film.

One day I found myself wondering what it would be like to expose the big Polaroid films out in the field, with natural lighting and in natural settings.

And so I bought myself a hand-crank processor for the films and hit the road with my old Century Universal 8x10 field camera — 2006. (The big Polaroid films require a separate processor to make the image, and the one I had in my studio was an electric model.)

It was on that first outing in rural California and seeing the big beautiful Polaroids come to life out in the real world that I discovered where I belonged. And it wasn’t in the studio.

I’d been on the road a lot in the 80s/90s as a skateboarder, but roaming with a camera allows for a new, more focused perspective; noticing the landscape differently, trying to figure out what it all means.

I’d make one more California road trip with the big Polaroid films the following year before making conventional films my primary medium. I’d also sell all of my studio lighting.

And in 2008, I roamed California once more, but now with 35mm black-and-white films. And from there I began exploring the Southwest and Texas, Colorado, etc.

Just prior to that I’d also discovered the dr5 photo lab, which was then in Denver, now in Iowa. Dave Wood, proprietor, processes negative black-and-white films as positives, or slides.

I was blown away by the results. And so from then on, all of my black-and-white films have been processed by Dave.

While also using color conventional films on my outings over the years, I have far more black-and-white slides than color photographs. Just something about black-and-white.

And so from my collection of thousands of these black-and-white slides exposed between 2008 and 2020, I’d pull a few earlier this year and collaborate with publisher Stanley/Barker on the making of my first black-and-white book, In The Gold Dust Rush.

It’s hard to put into words what the black-and-white photos mean to me, and the experiences of making them, but they hold a special place for me. This American landscape that I remain as fascinated by today as I was on those formative outings over a decade ago somehow feels especially quiet, its scenes more isolated, in black-and-white.

With more black-and-white publications to come, I’m thrilled with this first offering, and to be publishing with Gregory and Rachel of S/B, who make beautiful books.

Preorder a copy HERE.

This book has been a long time in the making, and so thank you for the support.

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Jason LeeOctober 21, 2020Comment

Highway 90 West of Comstock, Texas

Between the months of January and April of 2017 I roamed Texas sporadically with my old Speed Graphic 4x5 camera and sheets of a small variety of expired Kodak 4x5 color negative and reversal films for what turned out to be 25 days and roughly 5000 miles.

Up into the panhandle, a bit east, central, south, and West Texas. A lonely but fruitful expedition.

111 of the 298 exposures I made would end up being printed in the 2018 book A PLAIN VIEW (the first edition is sold out but a second printing will be available in 2022).

I’d return home to North Texas after a week or so on the road and send whatever sheets of film I’d exposed that outing to the lab and wait for the results. For the most part, the old films held up quite well. But here and there I’d find an issue—light leaks, fogged film, some of the reversal sheets having shifted drastically magenta, which can happen.

And with a few of the unusable exposures being of subjects I wanted to include in the series, I would venture back out in that direction, hoping for a better second result. The vast majority of the photographs in the book are one-time exposures, but where I felt something deserved another chance that didn’t quite work the first time, I’d find the location again and make a new exposure. Thankfully, the additional effort paid off.

On one of these return outings I noticed the location photographed above, which is just off the very beautiful, very desolate Highway 90 in West Texas, on the way to Alpine, Marfa, etc.

My first trip out that way I somehow hadn’t noticed the old gas station and its fallen canopy.

Despite knowing that it had probably been photographed before, and that it was perhaps a bit of a touristy stop, I still found it interesting, and so I made a few exposures of it with two different film types from the angle that can be seen below.

And then before continuing west to remake a photograph or two, I made one exposure from the above angle.

Both the initial and return outings to that region would yield a handful of photographs that would end up in the book.

West Texas is indeed very special, for those who’ve not explored it.

Below is the angle that was printed in the book, along with a few other photographs from that region that were also used.

Jason LeeJanuary 14, 2020Comment

Between LA and Texas - PART II

As I’d written in the last entry, I’ve spent a good deal of time over the past decade-plus driving back and forth between Los Angeles and Texas.

In general exploring California, the Southwest, and Texas whenever I can, with occasional jaunts into northern New Mexico and now two Utah and Colorado drive-throughs.

And that I often recapture scenes, this sporadic tradition dating back to 2008, the year of my first photo road trip outside of California.

I thought I’d share in this entry a selection of then and now photographs, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, which includes a few b/w photos from the most recent ramblings, fresh from dr5 (Ilford Delta 400), as well as a few additional new color (Kodak Portra 400).

One of my favorite little towns along the Route 66 / Highway 40 path that I take more than any other is Seligman, Arizona. I think I’ve mentioned this before. Great little eatery there, too, called Westside Lilo’s Cafe. Beautiful expanse of land out that way. Quiet. And then Seligman; tiny, and one of just a few joints sporadically dotting the long, empty stretch from Ash Fork to Kingman.

The old Seligman service station lights still stand, as does the old Datsun, more than a decade later. Two very familiar sites that I like to check in on whenever I’m out that way. While the only thing that changes about the station, aside from time’s influence, is the presence of greenery or lack thereof, the Datsun has been known to move here and there in the little bordered lot it occupies.

These Seligman photographs are being shown ahead of the others because they are some of the first I’d made outside of California.

The old service station lights, Seligman, AZ, 2008/9 - 35mm — The old service station lights, Seligman, AZ, circa 2008/9 - 35mm

The old service station lights, Seligman, AZ, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

The old service station lights, Seligman, AZ, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

The old Datsun, Seligman, AZ, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

The old Datsun, Seligman, AZ, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Often while either entering or exiting Seligman, depending on which direction I’m traveling, I make exposures from the overpass on the edge of town. There’s an ease about the view. And it’s familiar now. A reacquainting. Each time.

It’s usually during the day that I find myself on the overpass, but this last trip in July 2019 we found ourselves planted there at dusk. Beautiful. No tripod, rest the camera on the concrete barricade, hold it still.

Seligman, AZ, overpass at dusk, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Seligman, AZ, overpass, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Hi-Line Motel, Ash Fork, AZ, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Hi-Line Motel, Ash Fork, AZ, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Often not much will change about a location. Maybe something has faded a bit more, or the grass is longer, or shorter, or the trees more full, or less so, or you’ll get different clouds, or it’ll be overcast or without clouds, dark, light, or dusk. Or you’ll just move around perhaps a bit differently than the time before and capture the thing from a new position, as was the case with the most recent exposure of the Sandell in Clarendon, Texas, which also includes its reflection in a foreground puddle.

But while naturally interested in what may be different about a view with each new landing somewhere, or wanting to see it a bit differently than we did the time before, we simply want to see these things again, because we know them now. If nothing else, they are landmarks, reminders. But the returning to familiar views, there’s something special about it, and it becomes personal. It becomes important somehow. These simple American scenes; this life out there; the odds and ends, the quiet, the strange, the beautiful, and what remains; the lay of the land as it lay, and noticing it, paying it mind, and allowing yourself to be drawn to it, this is the driving force. The curiosity. But admiration, too. And the admiration seems to grow with each new visit somewhere.

As I’ve written before, Highway 287 in Texas is one of my favorite and probably most photographed highways. Ken’s Liquor is in Quanah. I first noticed it at night on a road trip in 2016 to Los Angeles, made a few exposures of it with Fuji 3000b peel-apart instant print film. Returned to Ken’s the following year with the old Graflex 4x5 camera while making photographs throughout Texas for what would become my 2018 book A PLAIN VIEW. It was night then, too.

And then most recently this summer, during the day. The night photos of Ken’s likely resonate more, I think for obvious reasons, but it was important to me to photograph it during the day, to see its other side and to include that shade of it in the collection.

Sandell, Clarendon, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 4x5 film

Sandell, Clarendon, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Sandell, Clarendon, TX, Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Inside Sandell, Clarendon, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Inside Sandell, Clarendon, TX, Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Ken’s Liquor, Quanah, TX, Highway 287, 2016 - 3.25x4.25 Fuji 3000b instant film

Ken’s Liquor, Quanah, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 4x5 film

Ken’s Liquor, Quanah, TX, Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Palace, Childress, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 4x5 film

Palace, Childress, TX, Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Adult Video, Highway 287, TX, 2017 - 4x5 film

Adult Video no more, Highway 287, TX, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

I.O.O.F. from the Memphis, TX, overpass above Highway 287, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

I.O.O.F. from the Memphis, TX, overpass above Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Grand, Electra, TX, Highway 287, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Grand, Electra, TX, Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Ford, Amarillo, TX, by way of Highway 287, 2017 - 4x5 film

Ford, Amarillo, TX, by way of Highway 287, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

The last time I’d been through Colorado with camera was 2009.

It was on the way back to Los Angeles from Texas.

I stopped along Highway 70 to photograph a view of sparsely situated houses off in the distance dividing the highway and the mountains behind them.

That stretch west I was accompanied by photographer Jon Beck.

And recently, in July, Jon was with me again, 10 years later, but now eastbound from Los Angeles.

And it was Jon who’d spotted the houses this time around.

I pulled off, turned around, exposed two rolls of Portra, one of Delta.

Beautiful overcast a decade ago, a more open sky this time around.

Houses off Highway 70, CO, 2009 - 4x5 Polaroid

Houses off Highway 70, CO, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Rafters, Rio Grande, NM, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Rafters, Rio Grande, NM, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Structure and overgrowth, Tucumcari, NM, 2017 - 120 Delta 100 (6x6)

Same structure and overgrowth, Tucumcari, NM, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Ford, Tucumcari, NM, 2016 - 3.25x4.25 Fuji 3000b instant film

Ford, Tucumcari, NM, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Old service station, Highway 395, CA, 2006/7 - 8x10 Polaroid 809 — Old service station, Highway 395, CA, 2006 - 8x10 Polaroid 809

Old service station; Revcon RV still present, Highway 395, CA, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Forgotten cafe, Highway 395, CA, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)
*same cafe as seen from the inside in the previous journal entry*

Forgotten cafe, Highway 395, CA, 2006/7 - 8x10 Polaroid 809 — Forgotten cafe, Highway 395, CA, 2006 - 8x10 Polaroid 809

When not entering or exiting Los Angeles through Barstow, I go through the California desert by way of Highway 62.

Beautiful, interesting geography, structures, people.

A bit touristy, busy in places, but ragged, strange, cinematic nonetheless.

Undeniably beautiful land.

Church, Amboy, CA, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Up the hill from Highway 62 and looking east, CA desert, 2018 - 35mm Portra

Up the hill from Highway 62 and looking east, CA desert, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Site of house fire; chair remains intact, CA desert, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Highway 62 from above, CA desert, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Mobile home park roofline at ground level, CA desert, 2018 - 35mm Portra

Mobile home park roofline at ground level, CA desert, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Off Highway 62, CA desert, 2018 - 35mm Portra

Off Highway 62, CA desert, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Fence in parking lot adjacent to the Cabazon Dinosaurs, 2008/9 - 35mm

Same fence in parking lot adjacent to the Cabazon Dinosaurs, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Cabazon Dinosaur, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

South of Highway 10, in Cabazon, lay a few interesting stretches of rural road, some houses here and there, abandoned farms and trailers. And from just about every place there is to stand, the spaceship-like Morongo Casino can be seen rearing its ugly head.

Strange, appealing little pocket.

Morongo Casino from south of Highway 10, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

Morongo Casino / ETERNITY sign from south of Highway 10, 2019 - 120 Delta (6x7)

ETERNITY sign, south of Highway 10, 2008/9 - 35mm

The exposures usually start or stop in Cabazon when going the CA desert route.

And so I’ll let this entry stop here, too.

Eventually these and more then and now photographs will see themselves on the pages of a book.

In the meantime, I will share more here as I collect them …

Jason LeeSeptember 1, 2019 Comments

Between LA and Texas - PART I

Lone Pine, California, July 13, 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

The beginning of roaming by car with camera goes back 13 years now, in California. I’d been experimenting with 8x10 Polaroid films in my Los Angeles studio and figured it might be interesting to take the big peel-apart films out on the road.

I went up Highway 395, to start, which is where Lone Pine is, and began making exposures. It was 2006. I’d made pictures here and there in natural settings with smaller cameras and conventional films before that but it was on that first dedicated “photo road trip” with the old 8x10 view camera that the approach to photography that I’ve adhered to since was realized.

That first road trip took me around a good portion of California. I made another trip around California with the same camera and films in 2007, and then with 35mm and medium format cameras I began exploring outside of California. In 2009 alone, I covered about 4000 miles between California and Texas, exposing primarily 35mm black-and-white films and a few sheets of 4x5 Polaroid and Fuji peel-apart films.

And now, a decade later, I’ve been back and forth between Los Angeles and Texas about a half-dozen times, maybe more.

I’ve made it a point to revisit scenes that I’ve photographed before and photograph them again, with an interest in seeing both the differences and similarities from the prior time to the present (photographer William Christenberry did this often in rural Alabama. His was some of the first photography I’d seen that uniquely resonated with me).

With multiple formats and both color and black-and-white films, I’ve accumulated a good handful of photos of these locations from various periods during that time that I plan to eventually publish in a book.

One of the locations I photographed on that first road trip back in 2006 was a forgotten cafe just off 395.

On July 14, 2019, the day after the departure date of the drive back to Texas from Los Angeles this time around, I stopped at the old place and made new photographs. A lot had changed, mostly in the way of further degradation by time, as well as man’s influence.

Being that I primarily go by way of Highway 40 from either Amboy or Barstow when heading east to Texas, taking 395 north this time before heading east meant it had been 13 years since I’d been there.

The inside of the cafe as documented in 2006 on 8x10 Polaroid 809 film:

The inside of the cafe as documented July 14, 2019, on 120 Portra 400 film:

On the drive out to Los Angeles from Texas at the beginning of July we took the Highway 40 / Route 66 path, eventually cutting down to Amboy and Twentynine Palms / Joshua Tree / Yucca Valley, Morongo Valley, Cabazon, and then into Los Angeles, choosing to skip the 15 south from Barstow.

In 2017 I’d taken roughly the same route with photographer Raymond Molinar on a drive out from Texas.

After making our way into California, Ray and I met up with photographer Jon Beck and explored those same desert towns, as well as the Salton Sea area, to wrap up that trip. Met up with Jon again on this most recent trip, and while we explored Highway 62 as Ray and I had done with him two years ago, there was no Salton Sea this time.

And now I was with photographer Eric Bouvet and my youngest boy, Sonny, out for the first time with a film camera. He’s 7. He was using my Nikon 28ti and exposing rolls of Portra 160 and 400.

I wasn’t sure how engaged Sonny would be but he was, absolutely. In the 3.5 days he and Eric and I were on the road, Sonny exposed nearly 8 rolls of film. And he seemed to know what he wanted to point the camera at. A really special experience for me to witness him take so enthusiastically to making pictures.

After spending a week or so in Los Angeles, Sonny and I hit the road and headed back to Texas.

It was July 13, and this time we were joined by Jon Beck and photographer Steve Reeves, who’d flown to Los Angeles from Dallas to make the trip back with us.

Steve and his photographer wife Erin had spent a few days in 2017 tailing me on the road for a short stretch while I was making pictures for A PLAIN VIEW, but this was mine and Steve’s first time on a photo road trip together. And mine and Jon’s first trip since 2009, when he joined me for a photo drive from Texas to Los Angeles.

Highway 70 snaking its way through a canyon, Utah, on the way back to Texas, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

I’m pleased we went up 395. Most of the repeat photos have been made in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and the California desert. And so it was nice to revisit 395, see the lay of the land these days. It had been too long. Beautiful stretch of California.

From 395 we linked up with Highway 6, moved across Nevada, a first for me. And then Utah and Colorado, two states I hadn’t seen or made photographs in since the westbound trip from Texas with Jon a decade ago. Down from there through New Mexico and finally southeast once more on Highway 287 from Amarillo, the exit and entry point of these road trips and a favorite highway of mine.

Utah along Highway 70 was gorgeous. While ultimately redundant geography, one can’t help feeling compelled to stop often and document the staggering views of such places.

Nevada, too, was stunning.

Colorado, as well.

Before landing in Grand Junction, CO, I was able to re-photograph a scene looking north from Highway 70 that I’d photographed back in 2009 and hadn’t seen since then (sparsely situated houses off in the distance dividing the highway and the mountains behind them).

From Grand Junction we headed south and then east, met up with 285 and then down into Taos, New Mexico, where we stayed a night.

Woke up in Taos, ate breakfast, met some photographers at the Mexican eatery, headed south and stopped to see the famous and very well photo-documented San Francisco de Asis Church.

Had never been there but had seen Ansel Adams’ and Paul Strand’s pictures of it.

One of the reasons I choose to step back whenever possible when photographing something is that I find it important to show what lay around or in the way of it (when applicable); the scene of a place, or around something. The whole of it. Or at least a portion of the whole of it. A more objective view. Documenting not only context but the now natural and accepted contrasts and contradictions that make up much of what and how we see is key for me—not being afraid of presenting reality, or, at the very least, offering an “alternative” view.

At a place like this very famous church, most folks are going to be interested in the structure itself. And you can’t blame them; it’s beautiful.

But I feel a strong sense of need to show a broader view, a more complete view, and, perhaps, a truer view.

This sacred burial ground was surrounded by construction scraps and materials, bright orange construction cones, rundown buildings, innumerable vehicles, and a gift shop. I understand why, but to avoid such things is to present a kind of untruth. At one point a UPS truck speedily and noisily drove into, around and then out of the plaza, its driver blasting Credence Clearwater Revival and moving about as frivolously as he might be if he were traversing a strip mall parking lot.

Even the sacred things, and the beautiful natural things, are being disturbed or disrupted by something, in some way, always.

Irony abounds, and it can be sad and it can be humorous. Strange, interesting, odd. Blatant or slight. But, still, it’s there.

Environmental contrast and contradiction; these conflicts, this is where the questions are. And by this I am motivated.

Gift shop t-shirts hanging in view of San Francisco de Asis Church, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

On the way out of Texas a few weeks prior we’d missed the light as we neared Amarillo heading northwest, and so I lost out on capturing again a few of the bits and pieces I like to revisit whenever out that way.

But now, we had plenty of light, and good light.

Since 2017, I’ve photographed the Sandell in Clarendon a few times, in both color and black-and-white.

Another productive and enjoyable bit of time on the road, with many more repeat photos added to the growing collection.

And with the company of not only some great friends but of my boy, Sonny, who will forever have his own film photos to enjoy for years to come.

And, according to him, it won’t be his last photo road trip …

Texas highways, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Memphis, TX, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Childress, TX, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Santa Rosa, NM, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Tucumcari, NM, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Highway 287, Texas, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Seligman, AZ, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Nevada-Utah border, July 2019 - 120 Portra (6x7)

Another entry to follow that will feature a selection of black-and-white photos from these recent trips, as well as a selection of companion photos from the archives ...

Jason LeeJuly 28, 2019

OK Series Info and Links

Firstly, a very big thank you to all those who attended the OK exhibition openings at Philbrook Museum of Art.

After a year in the making, it was a treat to finally see the 178 prints we selected for the exhibition framed and up on the walls.

And to those who have purchased prints from the set, thank you.

Exhibition prints are available in three sizes and editions - contact Philbrook.

Additionally, each month through February 2020 the museum is offering a smaller limited edition signed-and-numbered 8.5x11 print from the set - LINK.

The July print will be announced and available July 1.

Also on view at the museum is a documentary short directed by my son Pilot Lee that features behind-the-scenes footage of the making of the OK photographs - LINK.

A series talk at Philbrook has been scheduled for October 18. Details to come.

A hardcover OK exhibition catalog will be released at a later date.

Finally, a few links to some recent articles about the set and exhibition.

Some good insight into and photos from the set that have not been seen outside of the exhibition:

Humble Arts Foundation

Tulsa World

Lenscratch

Jason LeeJune 20, 2019Comment