No matter where you stood in the city, you could always see the blinking red lights of the broadcast towers in the distance. As a kid, I would climb onto the roof of my nana’s house at night while the adults partied inside. Looking over the dark neighborhood, I’d pretend to be on a spaceship traveling through the desert; the lights were my guide, and the momentary silence between cd tracks felt like an eternity in the cosmos. I could get lost up there—only if the barking dogs from next door didn’t give me away.

– Eduardo L Rivera

The Sun Echoed Like A Song is an exhibition of photographs made in Eduardo L Rivera’s childhood hometown near the Arizona/Mexico border. Taking inspiration from light and heat, he has been exploring the personal histories of family, community, and environment throughout the last decade.

Rivera takes his visual cues from this project’s central character, Phoenix, and its ever-present light and heat—two intangible forces that we feel but we cannot directly see or photograph. Yet light and heat wield direct and enigmatic power over who and what Rivera photographs. While seeking this subject in everyday moments, Rivera moves fluidly between two very different analog cameras: the 6 x 7 medium format and the 4 x 5 field camera. The results of his moving between these two precise instruments to interpret and organize what he sees within the frame, his knowledge, clarity of intention, and sense of space all become obvious. Whether using the handheld camera or the one upon a tripod, he might stage the image. Rivera responds to what he sees in front of him.

About the artist: