''My ideal world is a perpetual cycle of autumn and winter, burnished gold followed by a canvas of white,
over and over.''—Bruce Haley
Celebrated photographer Bruce Haley spent much of his career documenting people and geopolitical conflict in far corners of the world, resulting in a Robert Capa Gold Medal, and placement of his work in major international news publications and exhibitions. In recent years he has been photographing throughout California and Nevada, exploring his own personal history and definitions of home.
In his latest monograph,
Winter (Daylight, December 5, 2023) Haley presents color photographs taken between October and April throughout the Great Basin region of northeastern California and northwestern Nevada, where he and his family have lived the past decade. The county he calls home spans 4,200 square miles, with a population of 8,500. The land is vast and wild and isolated, and Haley captures this sweeping expansiveness of place in his signature style, blending composition and tonal variances that result in emotionally nuanced images.
The seasonal effect of winter collected in this body of work results in particular ranges of gray across sky, bare-limbed branches, and snow-dusted crests. Ice or snow clings to most surfaces, and light reflects off and through the boundless stretches of uninhabited earth. It is beautiful, haunting, and a window into remote, untouched landscapes, with hints of human presence.
Evidence of people reminds the viewer of the unique type of collaboration between land and human in remote areas such as this. Telephone and horizon lines mingle in a way impossible in cityscapes. Long stretches of asphalt reach out through pastures and brush shrubs. Abandoned houses remain in partially dilapidated states. Ice crystals form across barbed wire fences, barns, and hay bales.
Haley also wrote the book's introduction, and he reflects on his ... fascination with the arc of winter, and the wild variations of ice and snow found among both the man-altered landscapes and the untouched places of the region that I call home.
The photographs are presented chronologically, beginning with early fall, and moving through the ensuing few months on the path to spring. In the book's final image, it is spring, and the reader has traveled through the interior, contemplative arc of both the land, but also in some parts, the artist. Haley ends his introduction by noting: Between those two images is a twisting pathway through the heart of my winter, into the stillness of a dormant world.
Winter reveals Haley’s fascination with the wild variations of ice and snow found among both the man-altered landscapes and the untouched places of the region. His fourth book, Winter follows Haley’s two-volume Home Fires set, which looks at where he grew up (Volume I) and where he currently lives (Volume II). While Winter is a standalone volume, it may also be viewed as a companion piece to the second book in the Homes Fires set.
About the artist:
Bruce Haley is a recipient of the Robert Capa Gold Medal, and his work has been published and exhibited internationally for over thirty years.
