MONTANA : HOMAGE

For nearly forty years I have had an intimate love affair with Montana. My first trip "sealed the deal." I was in my early 20s and had never traveled farther west than Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I was going "home" to meet my future in-laws at their ranch in Montana that bordered the northern rim of Yellowstone National Park. The farther west we drove the more intimidated I became by the bigness of the sky and the miles of unpopulated landscape — sometimes dry and barren, or so I thought, and at other times rugged, as if it had been ripped out of the earth and squeezed so high the mountains seemed to pierce the clouds. Over the years, this land became my playground, my teacher, and my cathedral. Slowly, without conscious awareness, I fell deeply in love.

Over the years many of the images I've taken in Montana have appeared as "bits and bobs" in some of my photographic collages. This series of single images pays homage to the magnificence and romance of the western landscape; the environmental challenges that man has wrought there; and the natural constancy of change that can be monumental, imperceptible and often somewhere in between.

Each image is a limited edition archival inkjet print on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag paper. Most images are 22"x31". There are only ten signed and numbered prints of each image.