Saguaro Land is a series from The Show looking at the Sonoran Desert — the lushest, hottest desert in the world that happens to be our home.
In our newest conversation, we look at the Sonoran Desert through the lens of a camera — specifically the lens of Mark Klett’s camera. Even if you don’t know his name, you’ve almost certainly seen Klett’s photos over the last several decades.
He’s been shooting them since he came to Arizona in 1982. His images feature iconic desert scenes, often including saguaros.
The Show met with Klett recently at his studio, which is just through the backyard of his Tempe home. The building, which he shares with his family, features several printers, computers and boxes upon boxes of photos. That’s not to mention the nearly floor-to-ceiling desert images on the wall and the large-scale portraits taken by his wife that hang at one end of the studio.
The Show's conversation with Klett began with how he looks at the desert differently now than he did when he started in the early '80s.
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The Show's Amy Silverman reflects on the Saguaro Land series, and the plight of the iconic Sonoran Desert cactus that is its namesake.
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The Show is exploring the desert season by season in the series Saguaro Land — through music, art, literature, food, drink, flora and fauna — and now through design.
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Journalist Caroline Tracey has watched as Instagram and other platforms have turned a spotlight on the desert in ways she finds both refreshing — and troubling. She spoke to The Show more about the trend and what it means.
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In The Show's newest installment of Saguaro Land, we learned about using the desert to make music from Kyle Bert, who has been turning agave stalk into didgeridoos for 25 years.
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Tempe artist Safwat Saleem used baking as a metaphor for describing how he and his young daughter are learning to thrive in the Sonoran Desert.