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pedersenimages.com Lorna & Gary Pedersen |
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Galleries: Spring Bay, Great Salt Lake || Rozel Bay Oil Field, Great Salt Lake |
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Artist's Statement Photography has allowed me to present my personal reaction to the unlimited visual stimuli of the world. My initiation to black and white photography occurred on several trips to Rozel Bay, located at the northern end of the Great Salt Lake. I was moved by the beauty of the texture and design created by the light on the water, salt, wood, and rusted steel. My experiences were influenced by the long minutes waiting for each sunrise and the vanishing seconds before every glorious sunset. Time significantly changed everything. |
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Some moments were lost to photography and only remain in my mind, but many have been preserved in the timelessness of a photograph. Since that time, I have ventured to other places and have been gratified everywhere by the opportunities to capture the uniqueness of all aspects of life. From the excitement of shooting the glorious frost on clothespins outside our home one winter, to springtime in Red Mountain Pass, Colorado, the lilies in Bud Lake, and photographing my grand children; photography breathes life into my soul. |
| Artist's Statement by Gary Pedersen In the early 20th century, Rozel Bay was remote, dry, and noisy, and one of the first sites in the world to attempt drilling for off shore oil. Drilling yielded oil that was extremely heavy and ultimately made refining too expensive for commercial use. Today Rozel Bay remains remote and dry, but is abandoned and quiet. I began photographing along the shoreline of the Great Salt Lake in 1985 and visited Rozel Bay for the first time in 1997. At that time the abandoned oil drilling equipment was under water, but by 1999, the site was exposed by an extended drought. It was then, my exploration of this “place” began in earnest.
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Rozel Bay provides an opportunity to capture the duality of remnants from early 20th century oil exploration. Only a knowing eye can discern the ruins of salt encrusted pylons and rusted tanks lying about on the shoreline. These relics draw me in for close examination, not to understand the oil industry, but to witness the slow disintegration of abandoned interests. It is a place of opposites, where white salt coats the surface of everything exposed to the lake and black oily tar seeps and oozes out of the ground making imperceptible progress across the flats. In this place the world feels like it has stopped; it is like walking into a photograph. |
