Plague Doctor Collage, Badlands, SD 2020

This is a collage of five tintypes made at Badlands State Park in South Dakota. It was less than a month after the annual motorcycle rally in nearby Sturgis when the state had some of the highest rates of Covid 19 positivity in the world and pandemic denialism was in full force despite as many as 250,000 cases being tied to the rally. It was a time of uncertainty, anxiety and surreal absurdity. My response was to place a medieval plague doctor at the center of a panorama of tintypes depicting the harsh, strange, and beautiful vista of the badlands, a place of quiet beauty and humbling desolation.

Photo by Bill Steber
Wet plate collodion tintypes