Abandoned Homestead, Red Mountain Mining District, Colorado and Ralph, Moorcroft, Wyoming are part of Bryan Schutmaat’s series Grays the Mountain Sends. The series investigates the landscapes and inhabitants of the western part of the United States, looking at the geography, structure of labor, and myths that contribute to the region’s singular identity. Research is central to Schutmaat’s process; authors who chronicled the American West such as William Kittredge, Raymond Carver, and Richard Hugo join Carleton Watkins, Eadweard Muybridge, and other past photographers of the region in informing his approach. The artist’s use of a traditional large-format camera not only produces the clear, detailed, and spatially layered qualities of his predecessors’ images, but requires that he interact with his subjects as he sets up his tripod and adjusts the camera. Unlike 19th-century photographers of the West, Schutmaat searches for traces of the rugged terrain and ways of life in in the appearance of the people he meets. He documents the impact of the declining American mining industry not only in sweeping, bleak landscapes, but in the weathered and worn faces in his portraits.