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High & Dry

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High & Dry is a long-term collaboration between photographer Osceola Refetoff and writer/historian Christopher Langley. Together they survey the legacy of human enterprise in the California desert.

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Dead Tree Nests & Thermal Plants - Infrared Exposure - Salton Sea, CA - 2014  | Osceola Refetoff
Our lives are short. When compared to the landscape around us, we are the proverbial mayfly. Given the brevity of our mortality, we swell with pride, or shutter from embarrassment about what we have done to our home.
Building K – Whittaker-Bermite Site – Santa Clarita, CA – 2017 | Osceola Refetoff
Whittaker-Bermite in Santa Clarita has had many transformation, but this latest one maybe the most promising of all.
Canyon View – Whittaker-Bermite Site – Santa Clarita, CA – 2017 | Osceola Refetoff
Exhaustive landscapes have lives, history and stories to be read. Whittaker-Bermite in Santa Clarita, California — this scarred landscape especially has had many lives, which help guests understand better the condition of our world now.
 Stop-Liquor Jr Market – Mojave, CA – 2016 | Osceola Refetoff
Trinity Street in Mojave, California runs only three blocks, but in it High & Dry finds the cross-section of the lower economic strata of the United States and a "king" is facing society's toughest challenges.
Boarded-Up Farm House - Color/Infrared Exposure - Bishop, CA - 2016 | Osceola Refetoff
When pioneer farmers got to Inyo County from the Midwest, most of them had to master a new way of farming in arid lands. These farmers ultimately learned irrigation techniques and built two hundred miles of unlined canals.
1001 Natchts Ride
In the 1930s Indio coupled marketing their excellent date crop with Oriental fantasies borrowed from Hollywood and the short story collection “One Thousand and One Nights." High & Dry follows the evolution of this county's orientalism.
Thermal, CA fire
After a large-scale fire burned through a palm tree grove in Thermal, CA, all of the palms were assumed dead. But one pastor and his congregation prayed for a miracle.
Tourists at Badwater Basin, Death Valley, CA (featured image)
The landscape of Badwater Basin, the most popular tourist attraction in Death Valley National Park, is always changing. Artist collective High & Dry report from the edge of this earth dip, and attempt to capture the immensity before them.
Scotty's Castle After Thousand-Year Flood - Death Valley, CA - 2015
Scotty's Castle in Death Valley remains shuttered after rains and massive flooding.
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The town of Trona, CA is experiencing economic challenges. Artist collective High and Dry meet with its residents who remain stalwart in the face of adversity.
Fossil Falls Unimproved Campsite off CA Highway 395 - Fossil Falls, CA 2015
Artist duo High & Dry document the Fossil Falls desert landscape -- a region once occupied by heavy volcanic activity.
Fossil Falls, CA
We are now living in the Anthropocene where no landscape is untouched by human intention. What does the altered geography truly say about the human spirit?
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