ethnic mask

Recently rediscovered in my archives, this image brings back interesting memories. The image languished in my files for nearly 28 years after the shoot. The session was a frustrating exercise in logistics and creativity, attempting to photograph suspended masks in the Joshua Tree National Monument in California.

The idea was to take these ethnic masks, borrowed from one of my designer clients, and shoot them in an environment as mysterious as the masks. The production, as one might imagine, was not as simple as the image depicts. Suspension of the masks in the desert through monofilament line created many challenges given the scale of the landscape and my desire not to show any grip supports, no Photoshop in those days. Wind, spinning subject matter, and coordination of fading ambient light and strobe flash, had its share of frustrations. This was one of the only frames that warrants display.

Interestingly, the ghosted shadow effect of the motion of the mask during the time exposure adds a certain happy accident quality to the image that would not have been considered were this a Photoshop composite of the modern day.

My then girlfriend – now wife – and I split up on that trip. This may have had something to do with its lapse into obscurity in my archives.