SHUTTERING THE LAB

By MICHAEL PERKINS

MANY PHOTOGRAPHERS HAVE LOCALES THAT ACT as muses, triggers for their creative processes. Ansel Adams had Yosemite; for Walker Evans, it might be the streets (and subways) of Manhattan; and, of course, Paris inspired Eugene Atget to tell its story through indelible chronicles of its vanishing streets. As I prepare to leave Arizona after twenty-five years, the scene of most of my photographic crimes remains Phoenix’ amazing Desert Botanical Garden. Created as a nursery for the most unique plant life in the country, it has provided me with the breeding ground for thousands of images taken in every season, in every kind of light, and across the entire range of human emotion. It has, simply, been a laboratory where I go to work on the project of making myself into a better photographer.

I’m still not really “done” with the DBG, but the feeling of leaving something unfinished that I’m experiencing actually cements its place as a legit muse. Even the cacti and trees that I can practically find blindfolded along its paths still reveal new secrets to me, as they have done since I first vacationed in the area in the mid-90’s. From then til now It has been a testing ground for a slew of different film stocks, over six different cameras, countless lenses and a crazy variety of processes and approaches, from HDR to minimalism, analog to digital, soft-focus to low-fi. I’ve shot pictures of quiet contemplation and audacious art installations; I’ve taken casual snaps of awestruck visitors on winter vacations and pensive portraits of native “Zonies” who have made it their personal retreat. Most importantly, the garden has become my go-to playground, the most reliable place for me to stage my pictorial equivalents of an off-Broadway premiere.

The images I have made there, for better or worse, are a reliable road map of every major turn in my development as a photographer over a quarter century. All my light-bulb moments, my moods, my breakthroughs, my barriers. It’s all there amongst the aloes and the ocotillos, the starched plains and the insistent pops of floral color set against the restrained hues of the American desert. Life, death, joy, disaster, and above all, discovery…all of it has happened on these paths. Does that somehow make it the “best” place to take pictures? Well, that’s a very personal thing. Finally, it’s not about whether a particular place is of universal interest or appeal to everyone with a camera. The fact that it acts as a lab for kitchen–testing your concepts is enough, serving as a launch pad for your most perfect, most serious work.