Southwest Landscape at 75 MPH by Gina DeGideo, Mood Room, 2020

SOUTHWEST LANDSCAPE AT 75 MPH

As a Southwestern desert native and observer of this often-unusual landscape I call home, I’ve always found myself thinking more deeply about the relationship between humans and the natural world. In my work I use simple cameras and un-modified imagery to highlight photography’s unique ability to reveal the world to us. My work relies on intuitive image-making within my regular daily path.

In the project Southwest at 75 mph, I was afforded the rare opportunity to be the passenger on a trip from Arizona to California, a drive I’ve made dozens of times behind the wheel. I photographed the desert whizzing by me, with a mobile phone, from behind my dirty truck window. For years I have considered how, in my overly busy times, I only experience nature by car, as I pass through it and how that affects me. I see an altered, removed and summarized version of the land from a very unnatural state while driving. These photographs reveal the strange details found in the remote desert terrain, that my eye could only catch a quick glimpse of while passing through.