Probably the most joyous years I’ve spent as a author had been within the firm of photographer Douglas McCulloh, who died in January, per week after being recognized with most cancers. McCulloh and I labored on books and essays about Southern California, and the enjoyment was in lengthy days spent driving numerous miles on the lookout for no matter surprises got here our method — landscapes and other people, the untold tales of Southern California.
Doug all the time advised me, “I’m an atheist, however you all the time pray we’ll discover an incredible story, and your method appears to be working.”
We drove down Agua Mansa Highway in San Bernardino to {photograph} the grave of Antonio Trujillo — who as soon as saved the lifetime of Benjamin Wilson, later the mayor of Los Angeles — and located the headstones backdropped by warehouses and trade. We watched a younger Peruvian shepherd safeguard ewes and lambs in Nuevo with the assistance of an enormous white Alsatian sheephound who rose from the center of his disguise within the flock to threaten coyotes.
We spent days within the Coachella Valley, investigating its startling magnificence and equally startling revenue inequity — on the Empire Polo grounds, at employee camps, within the fields the place women and men bend to choose the meals we eat and confirmed us, with satisfaction, what it takes to develop watermelon: inserting a transparent plastic cup over each child plant in row after row.
1
2
3
4
1. A springtime watermelon harvest within the Coachella Valley. 2. Author Susan Straight and a historic chapel close to Oasis, Calif. 3. A Coachella farm subject and the Santa Rosa Mountains. 4. Election night time 2012, when Jose Medina grew to become the primary Latino from Riverside elected to the state Meeting. (Douglas McCulloh images)
As curator and interim director of UC Riverside’s California Museum of Pictures, McCulloh expanded on the themes of Southern California and past in dozens of exhibits — the prescient “Going through Fireplace”; the groundbreaking “Sight Unseen,” that includes the work of blind photographers; and “The Nice Image,” the one largest printed {photograph} in historical past, made with 5 different photographers at a former army airplane hangar in Orange County.
His personal photos are in quite a few collections huge (LACMA, the Huntington, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France) and intimate. The Medina household, proprietors of Riverside’s iconic Zacateca Cafe, maintain his footage of their unique restaurant on show of their new area. Jose Medina, the primary Latino elected to the Meeting from Riverside, embellished his workplace in Sacramento with a McCulloh election night time photograph.
1
2
3
1. The Zacatecas Cafe has been a group gathering spot in Riverside since 1963. 2. A driveway gathering on Michael Avenue in Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood. 3. Vicky Medina, who married into the Zacatecas Cafe, and family, 2012. (Douglas McCulloh images)
I maintain his sensible guide “Likelihood Encounters: The L.A. Venture,” printed in 1998, subsequent to me on my desk as I write. It’s the fruits of six years spent documenting folks and their tales present in exact quarter-mile sq. places chosen randomly from a grid map of Los Angeles County. Every photograph and textual content comprise a story, superbly put collectively, about a spot that might solely exist in Southern California. In every picture I see his boundless curiosity, his present for placing his topics relaxed, his eye for what defines my world, our world, in a method we shouldn’t overlook.
A yard sale on Victory Boulevard within the San Fernando Valley (McCulloh is mirrored within the mirror).
(Douglas McCulloh)
Susan Straight’s forthcoming novel is “Sacrament.” Douglas McCulloh’s last curated present, “Misplaced within the Wilderness: Ansel Adams within the Sixties,” opens Saturday on the California Museum of Pictures.
