By west, I mean everything west of Denver. Most of these photos are taken in the US southwest, in Arizona, Nevada, and Utah, and up the coast in Oregon and Washington into Vancouver. I wish I’d had the opportunity to get to Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho, but I have not made it back there in the decades since I starting taking photographs. Perhaps I’ll make that pilgrimage during my retirement.

It’s the openness of the western landscape that I love. Sky that big is not easy to come by on the East coast, until you reach the Atlantic, and it’s almost impossible to find on the continent (though Andalucia offers an exception). If driving is a meditation and refuge for me, then “Next services 320 mile” signs are its psalms. Though I must admit that driving now is less fun than it used to be, without enormous wolf dogs in the back of the track (and their absence also makes me feel less safe on highways, the favorite stalking ground of the western American serial killer). Still, I can’t keep away, and every time I make it back to the states I borrow my dad’s Toyota truck and head out to the hinterland.