Garage Fire and Casino, Bullhead City, Arizona by Kipp Wettstein

Photographers have long tested the artistic possibilities of the vistas, challenging terrain, and inimitable light of the American West. You can see things there that are impossible to witness in other regions. Kipp Wettstein started a photographic project around the Great Basin to explore the physical and psychic landscapes of his Mormon ancestors, but after a wandering (perhaps not unlike theirs) he settled on the subject of the Colorado River. The resulting series, For Water Will Not Do, is, as Kipp writes,

a story of a declining river, a setting of harsh beauty and thirty-four million people with no reasonable alternative. This is a search for some understanding of the historical forces that led to the extraordinary effort put forth to 'tame' a landscape. It is also an effort to record an environment in transition with a large slice of American culture inescapably in tow.

Working with a handmade, large-format camera (which he explains in fascinating detail on his site), Kipp captures such improbable and enigmatic scenes as the one in Garage Fire and Casino, Bullhead City, Arizona. Even taken at a distance from the conflagration, the picture evokes a sense of confusion and urgency that I recognized from an iconic image from the great photographer of American spaces, Jeff Brouws.

Car Fire, Interstate 40, California by Jeff Brouws

In exploring these daunting territories and landscape photography traditions, Kipp reminds us of the allusive power and real perils of the desert. There is of course more from For Water Will Not Do on Kipp's website.