Another America - Recent Work from New Mexico/USA

2018-2026

I first set foot on New Mexico at age 19 in 1975, traveling by Greyhound bus from Florida to California. The special state has been in my heart ever since. In the late 1980s I started conducting photographic tours to the American Southwest, where I introduced Florida and east coast travelers to “The Land of Enchantment”. In the fall of 2005, I brought my wife Betsy and our ten-month old daughter Angelina to New Mexico for the first time. These trips would become an annual tradition, often combined with a snow and skiing adventure. The dream to eventually move here became stronger and stronger - and in the spring of 2025 Betsy and I made it a reality, when we set up our permanent new home in Santa Fe.

To me, New Mexico is the most un-typical state among our 50 American states. It did not even become a state until 1912 and many Americans to this day do not even know that it is part of the United States. We are the only state where it actually says USA on its license plates. The majority of the population is of Spanish and Mexican ancestry and that cultural impact on communities here is very deep to this day.

While I will also exhibit this on-going body of work in the United States, I am specifically developing it to be shown to a European audience in my native country of Switzerland. Over the last couple of years, the world has been bombarded on a daily basis with negative news from - and about my adopted American home country. My images and stories of rural New Mexico are meant to show a different and more gentle part of America, all deeply rooted in the diverse history of its Native, Spanish and Anglo roots. In many ways, working in rural New Mexico reminds me of growing up in a small town in the Swiss Seeland (lake district), where we learned how each person through their family and work contributes to a vibrant community life.

For this project, I am exclusively using my favorite vintage camera, the 120 square format Twin Lens Rolleiflex from the late 1950s - the year 2029 will be the 100th anniversary of the introduction of this groundbreaking camera. The German made precision camera took over the world by storm and by the late 1940s two thirds of the world’s photojournalists and documentary photographers used it as their most trusted working camera. Over the last decade there has been a powerful resurgence of the TLR camera, popularized by serious students of the photographic medium - and working professionals - like myself.