In many ways these images build on the Landscapes of the Imagination series from the Lake District of England (2017). Montana is a place that lives and breathes in the imagination long after a visit. It invites written narratives and memories that people transcribe to keep them alive. Many of these photographs come from the valleys east of the Front Range of the Rockies — the same valleys Ivan Doig describes in his autobiography This House of Sky. These valleys halted the families of his parents and uncles as they left Scotland and settled with their sheep under a sky that must have felt like the Highlands on steroids. At the same time, only the limits of imagination can impede a sense of the sky’s and earth’s vastness.
A caveat: I am not claiming these images are of a particular quality. What they do for me is open my eyes to what western landscape photographers — including members of the f/64 group — were thinking and seeing. These are largely straight photographs, though I am learning many non‑destructive Photoshop techniques. Colleagues have described my literal, non‑destructive methods as “wacky,” and I am working on expanding my approach.