When the lights go down in the desert, photographer Tom Blachford picks up his camera. “I use the moon as if it were the sun,” says the Australian photographer whose new one-day exhibition, Midnight Modern, takes place on Friday, February 20, at the Menrad residence in Palm Springs during the region’s Modernism Week. For the new series, Blachford turned his lens on such architectural masterpieces as the recently restored, Neutra-designed Kaufmann house and the Edris House created by E. Stewart Williams. “I shot for two days on either side of the full moon and there was very little post-production work—the images look like a dream but they’re reality,” Blachford says, noting that the moon has many of the same qualities as the sun in terms of lighting, but with much less power. Blachford first visited Palm Springs in 2013, when the 27-year-old and his girlfriend crossed the border from Tijuana to see the fabled mid-century architecture and views of the surrounding mountains. “Coachella put the city on the map for my generation,” he says, and once in town, Blachford began shooting at night because he ran out of time to shoot during daylight hours. “In these neighborhoods there are no street lamps, there were no clouds, and very little light pollution,” says Blachford. He first shot the houses covertly, just catching what he could with his 2-minute exposures. For this series, Blachford worked with Chris Menrad—the president of the Palm Springs Modernism Committee and owner of the house where the exhibition takes place—who helped line up access to houses and loaned vehicles from his vintage car collection for the shoots. The result is a series of prints that are 64-inches-wide and bathed in beautiful shadows and the light of the moon, plus a few house lights and car tail lights on for good measure. “I’m getting to know the moon better,” says Blachford.

By Elizabeth Varnell

 

Pictured: Detail of Tom Blachford’s 470 W. Vista Chino Side, 2014
Photo by Tom Blachford

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