John S. Kiewit

John S. Kiewit developed skills in photography which he focused on surfing and natural and abandoned landscapes throughout the West, often in a VW bus with his wife Linda Linnick Kiewit, who died in 1999.  His book of photography, Gone to Sanctuary, was published in large format in 1997. There he wrote “At road’s end, the decay of man’s dreams and the simple elegance of the natural scene have been (my) premiere attractions.”

Preface to “Gone to Sanctuary”

“I have spent a good part of the past thirty years planning a trip or traveling to geography off the tourist itinerary. In the Western States I became familiar with places obsure and remote, and in the process came to know myself and the landscape as I found it.

The highways and trails leading to sometimes never-reached destinations have offered up solitude and grandeur, apprehension and beauty, knowledge and grief. Along the route and at road’s end, the decay of man’s dreams and the simple elegance of the natural scene have been the premier attractions.  The pattern of dunes, the color of sheet metal, the weathering of wood and the changing sky are images that are as important to me as the ‘grand view’. The pleasure in finding and photographing these subjects has never wavered, but has become more alluring over the years – the joy of the finding.

In additions to my journals, my partners in the search have been books; authors whose words became part of the photographs that I was looking to make.

Many nights, cocooned in a camper, I reread paragraphs and thought how those remarks pertained to certain images. In this text I have used some of my own remembrances together with words by favorite writers to frame my photographs.

I have destroyed by boots trying to dry them over campfires; eaten weird concoctions of my own making; imbibed with strangers; run out of gas; broken down; gotten lost; fallen into icy streams; been stuck in the mud, sand and snow; had major sunburn and blisters; started and ended love; been sick as a dog; and have made friends with some real odd people.

I am no sooner home than I feel the pull to be off again. I suppose it’s a type of sickness. Doubtful recovery.” John S. Kiewit

Today, over 1000 of his photographs are preserved and curated at the U.C.S.B. Department of Special Collections and can be viewed online:  [link here]