Grass Storm (2009) Photograph by Gary Moger

Near Julian, California. 2009.

Leica M8.

The storm is still a rumor up there in the mountains — something being discussed quietly between the clouds and the ridgeline, not yet decided. The sky has gone that deep, contemplative blue that only comes to the inland hills in winter, heavy with intention, the light beneath it strange and particular, the kind that makes everything it touches look like it means something.
And the grass means something. All that dry golden grass running from here to the middle distance in long unhurried waves, bending together the way a crowd leans in to hear a secret — ryegrass and wild oats, bleached by a California summer that doesn't apologize, now catching what light remains before the weather arrives. Patches of rust-red scrub interrupt the gold here and there, low and stubborn, the color of old brick, of dried wine.
Somewhere in the middle distance a fence line runs — you can just make it out, those modest wooden posts holding their thin wire across the valley floor like a polite suggestion. Beyond it the land opens into something broader and more ancient, the far meadow going soft and amber before the foothills rise and the trees begin, dark silhouettes disappearing now into mist and cloud.
This was the same day I photographed Storm Tree — the same restless October light moving across the backcountry, the same system rolling in off the Pacific. Up on the higher ground above Julian, snow had already started to fall quietly, without announcement. Down here in the meadow you couldn't know that yet. But the grass knew something was coming.

Shot on a Leica M8, and printed on Hahnemühle Photo Rag. Full frame, never cropped, exactly as it was.

Each print is made entirely by hand in Gary's own studio. Every stage, from camera to finished print, is carried out by Gary himself. Never outsourced. Always personal.

Materials used:

Leica M8, Hahnemuhle Photorag Archival paper

Details:

• Photograph on Paper
• From a limited edition of 50
• Size: 53.34 x 38.1 x 0.25cm (unframed) / 50.8 x 34.04cm (actual image size)
• Signed and numbered certificate of authenticity
• Style: Photorealistic
• Subject: Landscapes, sea and sky
• Hurry, only 1 left in stock

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