ROBERT CLAUS
Stevens Creek Reservoir: Year 3

Part of a three-year project, these black and white photographs explore human impact on a local reservoir. Taken during the last year of the project, they reveal not only the human impact on this environment through pieces of material culture, but also show the wider impact of a mega-drought exacerbated by climate change.

To document what I saw, I limited myself to using only a smartphone, and working only in black & white. On the lakebed, I found evidence of a profligate society: Old shoes, beer cans, and tires are only a small fraction of what the receding water uncovered, and made me wonder about the people who had discarded them here—who were they, and what had motivated them?

Yet at the same time, these relics also revealed an unexpected beauty in their patterns, textures, and shapes. Bleached driftwood emerging from thickets of weeds captured my imagination just as much as seedlings sprouting from mud, or the perfect symmetry of a discarded tire offset by coarse rocks.

Author
An emerging photographer with a background in translation and music,
Robert Claus has been exploring drawing, composition, and theater since an
early age. Born in Germany, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area after
graduating from the University of London.
Attending a major retrospective of David Hockney in 2014 inspired him to
return to his childhood love of photography. A self-taught artist, he has since
studied under Gina Militia, and taken workshops and classes from Ed Kashi,
Neal Menschel (both at Stanford), and Joel Grimes (remote).
He tends to draw on still life for his subjects, but has also ventured into
portraiture and landscapes. Now looking to gain wider exposure, he has
produced several book-length curated projects that range from theater work
to abstract still-life composition.

Website
www.clausphoto.art

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