THE GREAT DIVIDE refers to both a geological feature and a metaphor for human relationships. Geologically, it defines the boundary between the western and eastern watersheds of North America: water flows east toward the Atlantic Ocean on one side of the divide, and west toward the Pacific on the other. Repurposing this physical geography to figurative ends raises questions about other divisions between humans and other animals (both domesticated and wild), between habitable and seemingly inhabitable landscapes and between phases in life (which often change course at so-called "watershed" moments).

The photographs in the Great Divide meditate on these divisions in the physical setting of the Rocky Mountains, from the foothills of the Sangre de Cristos in New Mexico to the glacial landscape along the Montana/Alberta border. The language of division does not necessarily imply that these distances are either insurmountable or fixed. There are necessary contradictions and ambiguities ...