New Catalogue

In 2009 New Catalogue traveled to Europe to watch the Tour de France. We had planned to photograph aspects of the bike race, but were also prepared to assume additional projects if the situation arose. In Belgium, on route to France, we were struck by the idea to photograph a dead orchard. The title Dead Orchard resonated with New Catalogue as we both grew up in rural America where the sight of dead orchards was familiar. Luke also remarked on a story by William Saroyan in which a dead orchard punctuated the tale of an American dream not realized. We found the orchard on the eighth day of the journey, shortly after waking from a night spent in a grassy field in Provence near Sault, France. There were 20 trees Scattered about a field. Their branches were dark and brittle; they seemed ready to fall. We photographed the field for one hour, consumed by the fear that the project was a failure due to our lack of commitment to the site. After returning to our Chicago studio, we reviewed the photographs in color on the computer screen; they were as drab and forgettable as we had suspected in France. We de-saturated the images using Photoshop until all color was removed. Only then did the photographs have the resonance that we had hoped for. Later, we learned of the poem “Dead Orchard” by Frank Stanford. Stanford was a mythic character in American letters who notoriously died in Arkansas on June 3, 1978, the victim of three self-inflicted pistol wounds to the heart.