Boneyard — Arizona, 2015

"Boneyard" — Arizona, 2015 Fine Art Print — Roadside Series by Thomas Hoeffgen

They pulled off the highway somewhere outside Tucson. The boneyard stretched as far as you could see — row after row of aircraft stripped down to their bones, left to the desert sun and the silence.

By the time Hoeffgen stepped out of the Land Rover, the crew was already on the wings.

This frame was shot through the window of the Rover — the gutted cockpit of a dead plane filling the left side of the frame, its peeling metal and broken instruments still holding their shape. Through that wreckage, two figures walk the wing of another aircraft while a third sits at its edge, camera raised. The Arizona desert rolls behind them, mountains low on the horizon, the sky wide open above.

There is something that happens to a person who loves flying when they find themselves standing inside a grounded aircraft — the instruments still there, the seat still bolted down, the windows still shaped to hold back the sky they'll never touch again. It is a particular kind of beautiful. Part ruin, part monument.

Arizona holds more retired aircraft than anywhere on earth. The dry heat preserves them. Hoeffgen explored several — chasing the way desert light moves through aluminum and broken windshields. This one he never even had to leave the car for. The frame was already there, waiting in the window.

From the Roadside series — a road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles along Route 66, shot on assignment for Timberland that evolved into a self-published book and PDN Photo Annual Award winner (2016).

Available as a museum-quality fine art print on premium archival paper, in multiple sizes. Signed by the artist.