Desert Dispatches...

Desert Vista - Cinco, CA - 2009 They didn’t bother locking the front door when they left for the last time. The alfalfa farm failed because of economic challenges. When there was not enough water, the grass shriveled to a crisp brown. These were tough times for the families. They left the provided furnishings behind. Now these trailers that had...

Tessellations of solar panels fill geometric fields across the desert in Jamey Stillings' Changing Perspective: The Evolution of Ivanpah Solar. The Fine Art Photography Daily Lenscratch recently featured his work, which documents large-scale renewable energy projects from an aerial perspective. In Stillings' words, “I am fascinated by the visual en...

If you take one of the alphabet avenues of Lancaster, California and drive straight east, you enter the forest primeval. The Joshua trees (yucca brevifloria) go out in all directions. Their regular spacing is cut by the straight avenues of asphalt and matching straight cross streets named by numbers and directions: 20th Street East, for instance. C...

High & Dry is excited to announce the first material manifestation of our collaboration. An exhibition of Osceola's Desert Window Series photographs will be opening at Gallery 825 in Beverly Hills, CA on Saturday, March 22 from 6-9pm. The exhibit is open to the public, continuing thru April 18, 2014. Both Chris and Osceola will be attending the op...

The marks of water, and its absence shape the story of human presence in the desert. I have lived in the desert for more than forty years, having been converted to desiccation. In the desert I suffer from “rain hunger” nearly all the time. When a moisture-laden front makes it over the mountains, it is a gift from the gods, a time for a celebratory...

Before and after Google Earth images show the Cinco, CA site of many images featured in the 'If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now' series. The trailers and other structures were torn down in late 2011. The 1240-acre property off Highway 14 north of Mojave, CA was bought by Beacon Solar, LLC to install a 250-megawatt concentrated solar electric g...

Hard dry wind just suddenly blew up obscuring the Inyos and their setting sun blush in the billowing clouds of dust. The winds are ripping at all the young green leaves and as the skies become prematurely darkened, it is easy to imagine desert spirits rushing across the rooftops looking for an invitation to enter. The dogs draw near, coyotes howl a...

Osceola Refetoff's desert photography recently caught the eye of Los Angeles Times writer Louis Sahagun. A series of Osceola's color, window photographs will be on exhibit starting March 22 at Gallery 825 in Beverly Hills.

When the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power distributes their EIR (Environmental Impact Report) for their Owens Valley solar project, they call it a “Ranch.” No doubt they think that makes it sound more palatable to the residents in an arid land where cattle are a primary agricultural product. When first discussing it at public meetings, th...

The Eagles made the term “dark desert highway” iconic in their song “Hotel California.” Desert highways have unique qualities that “with the wind in our hair” call to us to embark on another life adventure. For the pioneers, the California desert was solely an obstacle en route to the Promised Land. They saw their life’s dream waiting beyond it’s...

"Deserts, accordingly, confront us with a vast horizontal edge, a horizon of emptiness into which we find ourselves absorbed and lost. The desert is intrinsically hostile to the ego, threatening to swallow it up in its endless expanse of nothingness.” — Belden C. Lane From The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spiritual...

High & Dry surveys the legacy of human enterprise in the California desert. Together, writer/historian Christopher Langley and photographer Osceola Refetoff document human activity, past and present, and how it impacts the lives of the people who live there, in the context of future development. The desert is haunted by emptiness, dreams, false...