Matt Shallenberger approaches his photographic subjects—most often landscapes—as a cartographer approaches a new territory. As he discovers information by following the sight lines of mountains, rivers, boundaries, horizons, and the ever-changing position of the sun or the moon, he always takes into account the history and prior records of his subjects. While he works consistently with darkened, blissfully moody vistas, Shallenberger’s research into his subjects begins from different sources each time: books, visits, illustrations, images, stories, and maps. Fittingly, he works by compiling a series of images for each project that explore one place or subject from many perspectives, offering compositional variations that capture the nuance and intricacy of these spaces.

Matt Shallenberger. 2715 from the series Counter Brand, 2013; archival pigment print; 32 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

In his Counter Brand series (2013), Shallenberger explores landscape and human presence in a Southern California area called Antelope Valley. The title of the series references the practice by ranchers of rebranding (marking on top of or next to the original brand) livestock, most often cattle, when the animals are stolen, sold, or lost. One work in the series, 2715 (2013), shows the decaying ruins of a single-story house. Four white plaster walls and the plywood covering the doors and windows remain as the roof collapses around a single narrow chimney. In the rear of the house, though, a small, high window is open, framing a singular cutout of the graying horizon beyond. Throughout his work, details like this one persist, adding a complicating layer of focal points to otherwise richly tonal yet potentially one-dimensional landscapes.

Matt Shallenberger. 2741 from the series False Pond, 2014; archival pigment print; 32 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

In another set of works, the False Pond series, Shallenberger traces a photographic path along the irrigation route through the southland of Los Angeles, California. This is a series of rich landscape photographs that explore the human presence from a notably restrained and removed viewpoint. Shallenberger’s work is quite sensitive; he never imposes anything upon his subjects, and the camera and photographer’s presence seem almost to disappear, as if he is simply mapping the terrain and not marking it. This sense of restraint leaves one to wonder why he doesn’t work with portraiture or with more human figures in his compositions.

Matt Shallenberger. 2735 from the series False Pond, 2014; archival pigment print; 32 x 40 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

In 2735, from the series False Pond (2014), Shallenberger uses another decaying building—most likely a house—and an open garage door or floor-to-ceiling window to reframe the flat vista of the Southern California landscape. The image is striking, as four large rectangular frames—windows, a hallway, a garage door—enclose and lead the eye through the darkened building to the view beyond, which looks staged and impossibly rich with a cinematic sepia tonality, almost like someone is projecting a film onto the very back wall of the house.

Matt Shallenberger. 2633 from the series Trees, Stars, and Birds, 2013; archival pigment print; 20 x 30 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Taking its title and inspiration from a 1920s field guide for children, the series Trees, Stars, and Birds (2013) combines film, exposed for several minutes, and photographic gels painted onto the surface of the film to highlight the colors and the low moon lighting the original scene. His 2633 (2013) depicts a solitary tree awash in a deep blue-black night. Shallenberger’s use of photographic gels to highlight the tree, adding light and color, transforms the tree into a faintly—yet vibrantly—glowing shape and the image into a potential underwater scene: surreal, yet identifiable and understood. While this is different from the other work featured here, the impetus is the same; the artist adds the colors less to alter the image than to give the viewer access to what his subjects look like under a certain light or a particular angle, even if it’s a light only of his making or an angle only he could frame.

Matt Shallenberger. 717 from the series New Fires, 2008; archival pigment print; 20 x 30 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Matt Shallenberger’s photography is prolific and transformative, yet he always takes a gentle and detached approach, allowing subtleties to emerge with the slight adjustment of an angle or the addition of post-production highlights. Taking multiple photographs from every scene allows Shallenberger to document, in detail, the un-captured aesthetic possibilities in these landscapes or subjects, and to share them through a deeply reflective approach.

Matt Shallenberger was born in Hawaii and now lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. He has a BA in literature from the College of William and Mary. His photography has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States. Most recently he has shown at Industrial Color in New York City and at the Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles.