The Third California, photographs by Terrance Reimer

California’s image is known the world over. The image is primarily of the southern coast, with the Hollywood dream dominating. The work that makes up this exhibition is of a very different kind of place, but is just as true to Californian and American history. Third California recognizes the tradition of western movement, the dream of the frontier, and assimilates those pieces that mark the journey and point to a journey still to come. 

Terrance Reimer himself is part of this tradition. Over 12 years ago, after building the foundation for his career in Ohio as a photojournalist, he packed up his life to move west. His appetite for life and art pushed him westward to a state as large and diverse as his visual hunger. When he arrived in California, Reimer established himself in the Central Valley just outside of Yosemite. He then began to make trips from his home in the northern Sierra foothills south through the valley to the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles. 

In the first part of the 2000s, this region boomed in population. Reimer became transfixed by the diverse cultural geography in this region that was being discussed by those familiar with it as “ugly” as more and more people began to flood in. In 2007, the Brookings Institute published a report on this region, and this report is where Reimer borrowed the title Third California. The report ‘The Third California: The Golden State's New Frontier’ by Joel Kotkin and William H. Frey stated, "Not much public commentary about the Third California is positive. To some this region of California represents an increasingly failed geography, a place of rising poverty, environmental, and aesthetic ugliness."  The Central Valley has been described as a product of 'malign neglect,' shifting from an agricultural cornucopia into "an almost unbroken chain of smog-choked cities and suburbs." This became the perfect space for Reimer, as he moved from the journalistic practice of capturing the moments of others’ lives to finding the details that comprised his new life and land, full of form and color.

Instead of lugging around a large professional camera with multiple lenses, Reimer only used his point and shoot Yashica freshly loaded with film. This became a freeing approach, allowing him to blend in as a tourist responding solely to the scene instead of worrying about the right camera or lens. At the end of each trip he would drop the film off to be developed at the local drug store. This part of his technical process became a beautiful metaphor for the project. The drug store being a common space that is central to the whole community just as the Third California was representative of that community.

Reimer’s work is a celebration of the foundation in color photography upon which it builds - the works of Eggleston, Haas, and Shore - who looked at the details of life around them: photographs on the road and at home, which defined both region and time. Upon that foundation Reimer lays one image at a time nudging forward to see what is possible. This exhibit is composed of details that reveal the photographer, the region, and its inhabitants through a collective representation - affirming a place and way of life as it forms.