JOHNSON, EIRIK

(American, b. 1974)

Eirik Johnson's ongoing series Borderlands, begun in late 2001, encompasses a wide geographical area from British Columbia through Nevada, with an emphasis on the outer edges of the San Francisco Bay area. While these pictures sometimes depict urban sprawl or littered fields and generally evidence a human presence in the environment, they are not concerned so much with the degradation of the landscape as they are with the strange and chance things that happen in places that are largely left alone. Johnson uses a 4x5 view camera, a format he prefers for its ability to bring large amounts of information into focus, to allow viewers greater access to the places he presents.