Truffle Shuffle

I thought it about time to jiggle the old website around a bit adding a few here and removing a few there, so please feel free to have a look in New Work, Urban 1 and 2 for a few visual goodies.
Without sounding too much like a big bald headed and boast full hole I do have a pretty vast archive of work but wouldn't dream about putting all on one site. That's what three years of shooting almost every day in the States will get you, that and a mountain of debt.

I took the above shot on my homage back to the Salton Sea last year. Most people will see a blue curtain blowing in the breeze and perhaps notice the matching Maxwell House coffee can on the floor. But let me tell you a little more about this image.... It was the summer of 2004 and I had been living in California for about a month. I had just bought my big blue camper van and made my first photographic trip to the Salton Sea, a place I had visited 3 or 4 times before on previous trips. It was an incredibly hot day and I arrived at the Salton Seas only trailer / camper van park in the late afternoon. I parked up my new camper now covered in dust and made my way to the office which was actually in the owners house. The old lady who answered the door must have been a hundred and five. She and her husband ran the park and had been since the sixties when the Salton Sea was considered the riviera of the West. They had eight Pugs (dogs) and who knows how many cats. I was given a large glass of Iced Tea and given an in depth history of the surrounding area. I was then introduced to Lizzie's husband Teddy, he was sat on a chair about forty feet in the air and told me there was an earthquake due and that I should keep lots of water with me. I paid my twelve dollars and was told to stay out of the sun because I was a ginger like there son. And so with pleasantries aside I set off with my camera (and plenty of water) and made what would be the beginning of my Salton Sea series. I got back to the camper site at about two in the morning, sweating like a pig it was as hot in the night as it was in the day. Exhausted I got into my van which was like an oven. I lay there on my new camper van double bed in a pool of sweat too hot to sleep and to tired to do anything else. At around three o'clock there was a tap on the door.... I thought it was murder and reached for my large flashlight with the idea to blind my attacker. "Hey Buddy its Maxwell, Teddy's son." Maxwell was indeed Teddy's son as he was ginger and was indeed very drunk. "Wanna come and get a beer and watch some football.." Here was a man I had never met, in the middle of the desert alone, hot and sweaty at three in the morning.... How could I refuse.... The house was cool, the beer ice cold. Max passed out after an hour or so but was very accommodating in his intoxication. I ended up sleeping on the sofa and knew for certain I would never of slept in the van, not in that heat. At fist light I made my escape before anyone awoke.
What has all this got to do with the above image you may indeed wonder. Well it was taken in the very house I had spent the night some five years earlier. Derelict and empty it was quite sad to know what it had once been. The curtains were the same vivid blue and I purposely placed the camera where the sofa had been. But the most splendid thing I find about this image is the coffee tin, I wonder if Maxwell was trying to tell me something....