Dan Zev
‘Tucson is more meditation than city. I can always spend a week or two
here, stretching out my lungs and relaxing my head. Familiar to me like
nothing else, it’s a state of being, not just another place to settle down
and call home. I’m struck by the constancy of things, in the short time I
spent living here it seemed to me a place that has always been, always is,
and always will be.
I lived in Tucson for just over 4 years, going to school, and have come
back to visit every year since. With each return, I brought along different
cameras, with the intent of capturing on film the essence of this place.
It’s not easy trying to convey what it’s like here with still images, a
place that’s so alive with movement and sound and taste and feeling. It’s a
work in progress.
During my last visit, in the Springtime, I put together a small daylight
studio in my friend’s backyard next to a chicken coop he built. Over the
course of a week I got friends and acquaintances to come by and be
photographed. These portraits along with other photographs from my visits
will be published in a zine to be released soon, under the title, “The
desert will hurt. The desert will heal.”’
