The photographs from the series Big Bar Lake Ranch are all taken from a larger project I’ve been working on for about 5 years. They document an abandoned guest ranch in the rural southern Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada. The lakeside ranch is a throwback from an era dominated by cattle farming and the pioneering spirit, and today sits awkwardly amongst an ever-increasing settlement of second homes of affluent Vancouverites . I was drawn to capture this fading monument to a past way of life before the inevitable speed of modern progress changes this part of Canada forever.
The ranch has been derelict for over 20 years and sunlight seeps in through the inevitable holes appearing in the walls and the roof, penetrating into the dingy interiors within. I wanted to use this cacophony of available light and let the condition of the ranch dictate how the photographs would be made. With exposures of between 1 and 4 days, image records over image, light over light, with each passing day. As the sun arced across the sky outside, this translated into the streaks and lines etched onto every surface inside. A recurring theme in my work is a heavy reliance on the element of chance, a surrendering of control to factors outside of my influence, leading to unknown outcomes.
