honorable mention
Marcia Mack united states
title
Mines of the Darwin Quadrangle
I am exploring an abandoned mine site deep in the remote mountains of the Mojave Desert. Hiking up a rock-strewn, broken trail scratched into the side of the mountain, the truck is left a mile back, the road too dangerous to drive. The site comes into view as I round a bend. There is a weathered wood structure, paint long gone from years of battering winds. Corrugated metal panels, rusted and twisted, lay about and are perforated with shotgun blasts. Its appearance raises so many questions: What was mined here? Who lived and worked here, and when? Why did they leave? How did they get materials, machinery, fuel, food and water here? Were they lonely in this desolate place?
There is sadness to the place, a sense of abandoned hope, of brutal, back-breaking work, and of desertion and failure. There is also the knowledge that these structures will inevitably be gone someday, perhaps soon, like the men who built them–the result of weather, vandalism, looting and the neglect of the forgotten.
These photographs can only ask the questions; I have few answers. I can only hope that in some small way the pictures might illustrate the emotion I feel, the wonder of discovery, the stark beauty and the finality of the place, the hope and the despair, the legacy. If they memorialize the scene, then I have succeeded in some small way.
I am intrigued by the compelling interplay between humankind and nature. Mine is an inclusive view that embraces the transformations that we impose on the landscape. A paradoxical thought drives me: perhaps a landscape might be beautiful and natural and touched by man; that here may be a particular kind of beauty specifically derived from a human presence and human culture.
I’ve earned a living as a designer, art director, photographer, educator and marketer, yet the joy of exploring the desert has never left me. My husband, two cats and I currently divide our time between Orange County and Darwin, California, a remote 1870s former mining town (population 50 or so) in the Mojave Desert.
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entry description
The silence is broken only by gusts of wind and the songs of cactus wren and the scrape of rusted metal against metal. Broken glass, bullet casings and rock shards crunch underfoot. Brush snags, catches, trips me as I walk. A dust devil whirls sand in my eyes and grit in my mouth. Relentless heat scorches and stifles, yet the sweat evaporates before it cools.I am exploring an abandoned mine site deep in the remote mountains of the Mojave Desert. Hiking up a rock-strewn, broken trail scratched into the side of the mountain, the truck is left a mile back, the road too dangerous to drive. The site comes into view as I round a bend. There is a weathered wood structure, paint long gone from years of battering winds. Corrugated metal panels, rusted and twisted, lay about and are perforated with shotgun blasts. Its appearance raises so many questions: What was mined here? Who lived and worked here, and when? Why did they leave? How did they get materials, machinery, fuel, food and water here? Were they lonely in this desolate place?
There is sadness to the place, a sense of abandoned hope, of brutal, back-breaking work, and of desertion and failure. There is also the knowledge that these structures will inevitably be gone someday, perhaps soon, like the men who built them–the result of weather, vandalism, looting and the neglect of the forgotten.
These photographs can only ask the questions; I have few answers. I can only hope that in some small way the pictures might illustrate the emotion I feel, the wonder of discovery, the stark beauty and the finality of the place, the hope and the despair, the legacy. If they memorialize the scene, then I have succeeded in some small way.
about the photographer
I grew up and studied art in the Boston area: Summers as a young teen at the Museum of Fine Arts School taking art classes and roaming the galleries; stints studying at UMass Dartmouth and Boston University as a design and art history major, respectively; subsequently earning a BFA in photography from Massachusetts College of Art. Moving to Southern California in the late 1970s, my first experience of the desert was on the cross-country road trip. Breaking down outside of Glendale, Nevada on a sweltering early-September morning at sunrise—the Las Vegas lights in the distance—I was smitten. It has been a love that has endured.I am intrigued by the compelling interplay between humankind and nature. Mine is an inclusive view that embraces the transformations that we impose on the landscape. A paradoxical thought drives me: perhaps a landscape might be beautiful and natural and touched by man; that here may be a particular kind of beauty specifically derived from a human presence and human culture.
I’ve earned a living as a designer, art director, photographer, educator and marketer, yet the joy of exploring the desert has never left me. My husband, two cats and I currently divide our time between Orange County and Darwin, California, a remote 1870s former mining town (population 50 or so) in the Mojave Desert.
back to gallery