Twin favourite Dan Martensen began taking road trips to the American Southwest in 2001, drawn to the beautiful decay of the desert environment. His new book Photographs from the American Southwest  collects his photographs from 2001 to 2011, depicting a world of Jesus Christ billboards, foreclosure signs and big-box stores, pitched against the backdrop of the lonely desert landscape. Twin asked Dan for one of his best memories of the project…

“Once I was driving somewhere very remote, along the border of Arizona and California. It was getting dark, and when it gets dark in the desert  it usually gets cold, very cold, very quickly. So as I drove along the road and the sun was setting, I hadn’t seen a soul along the road in at least an hour. I came around a bend as the sun was falling behind a mountain. It was beautiful, so I jumped out of the car and went to take a photograph.

“After about 10 minutes the sun was gone, and all of a sudden it was freezing… and I was wearing a t-shirt…. aaaand I realized I had locked myself out of my car….which was still running. I was fucked basically. After a minor freak out, I started thinking of ways to get into the car. With no rocks in sight, thoughts using my camera do break the window crossed my mind. With my phone staring back at me from inside the car I got fears of desert creatures, snakes, coyotes, meth addicts, would all be happy to find me there alone stranded in the cold.

“About 45 minutes went by pacing back and forth I remembered seeing an old barbed wire fence about 100 yards away. I hiked and sifted through the sand looking for a piece of barbed wire and eventually found a piece long enough to pry my way between the door and the window and jimmy the lock open leaving my hands bleeding and frozen I drove away shouting at the top of my lungs and laughing like a mad man.”

danmartensen.com