The Way West

A Photo Exploration

BY MICHAEL HANSON

motion becomes comfortable and the interactions with strangers keep me seeking more assignments. But my work life shut down in Spring 2020. I was home and the calendar was relatively empty. Perhaps, I thought, this was a good time to experiment with a different type of photography.

For most of my adult life, I’ve found comfort in packing bags and traveling throughout the U.S. for photography assignments. Sometimes I go places simply out of curiosity. The

I grew up in the South and attended a small university in Lexington, Virginia, where I volunteered at an education center that had been Sally Mann’s childhood home. Mann is a ne-art photographer known for her sometimes-haunting black-and-white images taken with old antique view cameras. Many critics consider her one of the most accomplished photographers of her generation. I have always admired her work and her approach to ne-art storytelling.

In her book, Deep South, Mann references a British historian who pondered the visceral link between the American South and Europe. He proposed that the two lands share a familiarity in their “lingering aftertaste of defeat.” ere’s little doubt the American South has a complex, mournful existence.

Now I live in the Paci c Northwest. Dropping into the Gorge from the Columbia Plateau, the still waters of the Columbia River appear as a lake, drifting reluctantly toward an inevitable fate of salinity. Photographers have documented the beauty of this region for more than a century. It’s unlike any other place in America and deserves the praise, but e wet plate process was the main form of photography through the 1800s and early 1900s. It begins by adding a layer of collodion to a plate of glass and then submersing that coated glass into a silver nitrate mix, causing the plate to become light sensitive. While under a red light, the glass plate is put into a lm holder. I use an old 4x5 eld camera to expose the plate. Returning to my makeshift darkroom in the back of my truck, I develop the plate and ‘ x’ it, allowing the plate to be removed from the darkroom. It’s a messy process. My clothes and skin are stained brown. e chemicals often do not do what I want. I pour too much. e wind blows too hard. Unwanted streaks cover the image. I don’t know why things happen the way they do but the results feel magical.

I’ve always wondered what this place looked like before we altered the course of the river. I can’t help but see a river sunk beneath a lake.

As Covid life set in, I began to explore my own method of documenting my home. How can a river be so complex? e same waters that carry remnants of our ushed and buried mistakes also provide refuge for a species that, despite many hurdles, or dams, continue to ght to return home. A centuries-old falls where salmon surrendered to a waiting net now rests at the bottom of a dark pool. I see a world where past and present collide into a complicated scene and think perhaps the British historian was only half right. e South is not the only American landscape that has su ered the weight of defeat. e mysterious, unpredictable images that appear on a plate of glass under the red light of my headlamp feel appropriate, messy and complicated. e river still hides something beneath. Hood River photographer Michael Hanson's exhibit, The Way West, opens August 4 at the Columbia Center for the Arts with a reception during First Friday. The exhibit runs through the end of the month.

story and photos by BEN MITCHELL