Joseph Wilson

Joseph Wilson makes big, gorgeous photographs of big, gorgeous landscapes. He's willing to wait a long time for the light to be where he wants it before he shoots. His photo labels include time spent, ranging from two or three hours to two days. "If I have a book I can wait as long as it takes," he says cheerfully.

The resultant Cibachrome prints are produced from 4-by-5-inch transparencies, not negatives, in close collaboration with a master printmaker in a process rapidly being outmoded by faster but less satisfactory digital means. The works have the presence of paintings and at their grandest are printed 30 inches by 40 inches.

Angel Wing is one of a series I particularly admire. Taken on a Navajo reservation in a dry watercourse subject to flash floods, these photographs are so close to abstraction that the subject is irrelevant. Light penetrates the slotted canyons to reveal shapes and colors that might mark some otherworldly experience. In "Angel Wing" the central thrust of stone is oddly lit and leaning, set off by the bright background and irregular dark borders formed by walls on either side. A jagged thrust of yellow shimmers into the composition from almost dead center at top, leading the eye to the action as surely as a finger points. Instability is implied -- there's light where you don't expect it -- and lends a certain scary impermanence to it all.

"It's dangerous in there," Wilson admits. "Floods can be unexpected, but the danger adds to the beauty. Because it's on the Navajo reservation you can only go into the canyon if they'll take you. But they know me. I had to learn to understand the light there, to see the way the film sees."

Most of Wilson's handsome work is more recognizable landscape, from the Far West or as near as Ohio's Cuyahoga Falls. But his Navajo watercourse prints are my favorites. See them every Final Friday at the Pendleton's Studio 312 in Over-the-Rhine. (You can also call 513-290-0861 to schedule a private viewing.)