When I was a kid, I found some old maps at home in the attic, which I displayed on my bedroom walls. One that stood out as being different was of Nevada because of its big blank areas. I always wondered what the blank areas would look like.
Many years later I relocated to Los Angeles for a few years to work. I took the opportunity to drive to Nevada. To my English eyes, it was a landscape that astonished me for its spaciousness emptiness, and a characteristic that seemed to emphasise the few things that were there. If landscapes can have opposites, I thought that this one was opposite to the green, green rolling English countryside; its antithesis. It was like seeing behind the stage set.
I decided to replace my long lost childhood map. I found a small casino near the Nevada boarder. Because America has such a huge international commercial presence in the world one assumes American businesses must be savvy and a casino’s main product is a pocket full of hope, perhaps too savvy by half. I went into the Casino gift shop to ask for a map of Nevada and was told that they do not sell them any more, because when they did, people would keep buying them, so they kept running out and had to keep reordering the maps. They had to put a stop to that! Richard K. Wolff
Picture shows, Extraterrestrial Highway, State Route 375, Nevada, USA. 15th Feb 1999
Date: 15/02/1999
Location: State Route 375, Extraterrestrial Highway. Nevada, USA
Photographer: Richard Keith Wolff
