Joseph Vavak Joseph Vavak

At the end of the song, so long

Photographs from one last trek this year to the expanse of the Great Plains in the Dakotas, Montana, and Nebraska.

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Post title: The Promise Ring - Say Goodbye Good

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Joseph Vavak Joseph Vavak

Blue in Green

Photographs of Nebraska’s Sandhill region, many made on one-lane blacktop roads listening to jazz and thinking of what’s to come.

This may or may not be the start of something new.

I experimented with a telephoto lens to take landscape photographs for the first time in many years in an attempt to isolate some of the details of the landscape. The Sandhills are a fascinating place, full of subtle variations in color and shape, but I have always struggled to capture them in a way that does all of this justice. Time will tell if I find success or not.

Enjoy!

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Post Title: Miles Davis - Blue in Green

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Joseph Vavak Joseph Vavak

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found

Back in June, I spent a few days in North Dakota visiting many new places and some I had been inspired by on a previous trip during the spring of 2013, places like Antler, only a few miles from a very quiet Canadian Border, and Devil’s Lake, a natural phenomenon that has grown exponentially over the last few decades due to changing climate. The weather spent almost the entire time I was on the road threatening to due something but politely holding back when I needed it, for the most part.

All of these images are part of a yet-untiled Great Plains project that is taking shape in my mind with photographs from the past decade of wanderings. I think I’m nearing the point that I will call the making photographs portion of it done, and then I’ll focus on making something out of it for a book and unveiling at a group show at Gallery 1516 here in Omaha next year.

It’s just about time for something new. What that is and how that works - I am not entirely sure. That’s the (mostly) fun part of all of this and why I’ve kept at it for a good 15 years so far.

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Post title: John Steinbeck - Travels with Charley: In Search of America

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Joseph Vavak Joseph Vavak

Everything is flat and empty here

I’ve been back in Omaha for a few days and have begun the task of going through all of the images I created during my road trip last week. After every trip like this, I go through cycles of both satisfaction and unhappiness with what I managed to capture. At the moment, I’m mostly on board with the bulk of what I see in the images.

Texas was the last part of the American portion of the Great Plains that I had yet to explore. These photographs will ultimately be part of a larger project that I have been working on for a number of years now, something that is either almost finished or needs more thought.

I’ll figure out, eventually.

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Post title: The Last Picture Show (1971)

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