The photo editors at TIME magazine have selected a new book by Associate Professor Ron Jude, of the UO Department of Art, as one of the best photo books of the year. Lago, the culmination of a four-year project, features images shot in the Southern California desert, where Jude grew up. The pictures were taken in locations ranging from the Imperial Valley, near the Mexican border, up to Apple Valley 180 miles north, as well as at the Salton Sea, as in Floating Boy, 2012 (below). 

“With few exceptions, I don’t have any stories about my time in the desert—this struck me as an interesting premise for making and organizing a group of pictures,” Jude told fotografia magazine. Lago, published by London-based MACK, launched in September at the New York Art Book Fair; Jude also gave a public lecture about his work at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Also recently, Jude exhibited photographs from his Lick Creek Line project in the Experimenting Continuity exhibition (July-September 2015) at Rencontres d'Arles in France. In mid-January, Lago will open as a solo exhibition at Gallery Luisotti in Santa Monica, California, and Shelter Press in France will issue the vinyl release of the audio accompaniment to Lago by sound artist and experimental film maker Joshua Bonnetta. Learn more about Jude and Lago. Read about him in Around the O.