Trevor Kubat
Poverty, addiction, and decay are some of the obvious characteristics of the Fort Rock desert in central Oregon. Most of my photos from this region depict abandoned trailers and mobile homes. Two of my photos in this entry, "The Yellow House" and "The Yellow House Part Two" depict such a place. When I came upon this house, the stench of rotten flesh could be smelled from about fifty yards away. From what I could discern, this place housed a widow, many dogs, about a dozen birds, at least four horses, and several other skeletons I could not identify. It seemed as though the widow died with no one to check on her. With no caretaker, the animals died slow deaths of thirst or starvation. The horses resorted to eating the sagebrush around their corral, and the birds appeared to become a feathery black sludge at the bottom of their cages.
Such scenes are abundant for the traveling photographer wishing to depict a dramatic portrait of horrific destitution. However, such photos alone would form an incomplete rendering of Fort Rock-Christmas Lake Valley Basin. In fact, archaeologically and geologically, this is one of the most fascinating places in the country. In 1938, archaeologist Luther Cressman unearthed ancient Paleoindian sagebrush sandals from Fort Rock Cave which happened to be from 11,200 B.C.E., thousands of years earlier than experts previously theorized. What is now arid desert was once the lush coastal region of an inland sea. Signs of this history are present everywhere in the basalt. Under the ground are miles of lava caves still waiting to be discovered or only known by a few. With photos like "Dead Grandfather's House" and "Castilleja Miniata," I am trying to offset the horrific elements of the area with an appreciation of the older components like flora and history. Hopefully, the spectrum of things to see in the basin can be sampled by these ten photos.
All photos were shot in the Summer of 2018 on various expired slide films, then printed digitally.