Deon Reynolds: Harnessing the Wind

Deon Reynolds is a commercial and fine art photographer based in the remote community of Eureka, Nevada, where he moved in 2005. He was educated in Portland, Oregon at the Museum Art School, now the Pacific Northwest College of Art, where his father Robert Reynolds was a teacher. He apprenticed with several renowned artists and photographers and was a studio assistant and photographer, shooting catalogs and advertisements for prominent companies.

Recognized by the Annenberg Space for Photography, International Photography Awards, Blur Magazine and Lenscratch, Reynolds is also a B&W Spider Awards Fellow. His work is included in the archive collection of the Center for Art + Environment within the Nevada Museum of Art. He is also a board member of the Nevada Arts Council. His involvement with NAC began a few years before moving to Eureka as an Artist in Residence teaching photography across the state. He and his wife Trish were the first Artists in Residence at Great Basin National Park in 2007. He has had exhibitions at the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas, Sierra Arts Foundation, Churchill Arts in Fallon, the Western Folklife Center, and the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko, among many other locations. Reynolds was named an international Spider Fellow Nominee for the 7th Annual Black and White Spider Awards in 2012, and has been awarded two Honorable Mentions by The International Photography Awards in 2012. His books, “Nevada” and “Las Vegas: Portrait of a City” were published in 2001 and 2006 respectively.

Reynolds was hired to document the construction of Pattern Energy’s Spring Valley Wind, which is situated on 7,680 acres of BLM administered land, thirty miles east of Ely, Nevada in White Pine County near US-50. Spring Valley Wind consists of 66 2.3 megawatt Siemens wind turbine generators. The 152 megawatt facility started selling electricity in August of 2012. Following the success of that project, he was invited to photograph the operation of Pattern Energy’s Ocotillo Wind facility located on 12,500 acres of BLM land, northwest of Ocotillo, California in Imperial County. This site consists of 112 – 2.3 megawatt Siemens turbines. The 265 megawatt facility, began selling electricity in July of 2013. The third site Reynolds photographed, Panhandle Wind, is divided into two separate facilities: Panhandle 1 and Panhandle 2. This site had its grand opening on November 14th, 2014. The final portfolios consist of one portfolio of construction images, and a second portfolio of final images, each consisting of a selection of images from the three sites.

Materials include two photographic portfolios, artist information, maps, schedules, promotional materials, grand opening ephemera, and press materials.

• 1 Artist and General Project Information: 2012 – 2015
• 2 Spring Valley: Nevada, 2012
• 3 Ocotillo Wind: California, 2013 – 2016
• 4 Panhandle Wind: Texas, 2014
• 5 Harnessing the Wind Construction Images Portfolio: 2016
• 6 Harnessing the Wind Portfolio: 2016

• CAE1502: Jamey Stillings: Infrastructure and Landscape