Desert Mail (2003) Photograph by Gary Moger

Joshua Tree, California, 2003.

I have a soft spot for the things you come across on the American road. Not the big sights, necessarily, but the everyday details that tell you something about a place.

These mailboxes caught my eye. A dozen or so battered metal boxes standing out in the desert, each one a slightly different shape, colour and condition. Some have their little flags raised. Others look as though they've been there for years. There's a name on one, a number on another. Small traces of lives going on somewhere beyond the frame.

I like the contrast between these ordinary objects and the scale of the landscape behind them. The dry scrub, the distant mountains and that enormous blue Californian sky. There's a stillness to the scene that I find appealing. The desert seems to go on forever, while these mailboxes quietly get on with their job.

I photographed this in Joshua Tree in 2003 with my Leica M6 on Kodak Portra NC film. Looking back, it's exactly the sort of thing I love photographing: something familiar made a little strange by where it happens to be.

The print

I drum-scanned the original film and print the photograph on Hahnemühle Photo Rag archival paper in my own studio. Every print is carefully checked before packing, and I use plastic-free packaging.

Limited edition of 50, signed and numbered, with a certificate of authenticity.

Materials used:

Leica M6, Kodak portrait VC film, Hahnemuhle Photorag Archival paper

Details:

• Photograph on Paper
• From a limited edition of 50
• Size: 71.12 x 38.1 x 0.25cm (unframed) / 66.04 x 34.8cm (actual image size)
• Signed and numbered certificate of authenticity
• Style: Photorealistic
• Subject: Landscapes, sea and sky
• Hurry, only 1 left in stock