Gallery: The Desert Towns That Wrote the Histories of Nukes and Race Cars
Photo: Mike Osborne01Osborne-FI-C07-05
With designed and graphic compositions, Osborne’s photographs in the barren landscape make some modern day land speed activities look like lunar expeditions.
Photo: Mike Osborne02Osborne-FI-C09-04
Osborne wanted to address the landscape's place in our collective consciousness. “The list of movies that have featured Wendover's otherworldly surroundings is long, fascinating, and often apocalyptic,” he says.
Photo: Mike Osborne03Osborne-FI-C02-01
“The casinos called themselves resorts, and people resorted to them. Many came by car and truck and tour bus. On Fridays, the parking lots were full. They also arrived on daily planes. Shuttles waited by the tarmac to convey them onward,” writes Osborne in his artist statement.
Photo: Mike Osborne04Osborne-FI-C02-02
Osborne first passed through the area -- Western Utah, Eastern Nevada -- in the late-90's, while driving from Texas to California for college. He always planned to return with his camera.
Photo: Mike Osborne05Osborne-FI-C02-04
Wendover, Utah was established in 1908 as a stop on the Western Pacific Railroad.
Photo: Mike Osborne06Osborne-FI-C01-01
“A number of excellent contemporary landscape photographers have shot in and around Wendover including Richard Misrach, Mark Ruwedel, William Wylie, Mark Klett, Vicky Sambunaris, and Trevor Paglen," says Osborne of his influences.
Photo: Mike Osborne07Osborne-FI-C07-03
100 years ago, Teddy Tetzlaff clocked 142.8 MPH on the Bonneville Salt Flats, laying down the first U.S. land speed record. Since 1914, thousands more speed-freak feats have been made upon those 99 million cubic yards of salt.
Photo: Mike Osborne08Osborne-FI-C05-03
"Some of the pictures were shot in relatively straightforward fashion, where others involved a fair amount of artifice—unusually long lenses, lights and so on," says Osborne.
Photo: Mike Osborne09Osborne-FI-C07-02
Independence Day, Tree Of Life, and Cremaster Cycle (II) are some of the dozens of films made in and around Wendover, UT and West Wendover, NV.
Photo: Mike Osborne10Osborne-FI-C02-03
The population of Wendover, UT has shrunk to 1,500. Meanwhile, West Wendover has grown in recent decades to 4,500 people.
Photo: Mike Osborne11Osborne-FI-C02-05
With desert truck stops, Interstate off-ramps, classified military operations, environmental compromise, casinos and world record attempts Osborne’s photography is as American as it comes.
Photo: Mike Osborne12Osborne-FI-C03-01
The Enola Gay crew dropped early prototypes of Little Boy and Fat Man—the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki—on the Great Basin Desert.
Photo: Mike Osborne13Osborne-FI-C06-01
Since the closure of the Wendover Army Airfield military base, Wendover and West Wendover forged out new economic incomes and now rely heavily on the jobs and tax base provided by the gaming industry.
Photo: Mike Osborne14Osborne-FI-C06-02
“In their hearts, machines were lined up in rows,” says Osborne of the casinos. “Their screens glowed and they emitted the sounds of clinking coins and electronic arpeggios. The sounds proved the machines were working. Money was being made, life sustained.”
