Troy Paiva Photography ::::: Night Photography of the Abandoned West

Wandering the deserted backroads of the American Southwest, Troy Paiva has explored the abandoned underbelly of America since the 1970s. Since 1989 he’s been taking pictures of it . . . at night, by the light of the full moon.

A multi-discipline artist, Troy needed to find a new medium to create personal art while he worked in a heavily art directed graphic design job. Sitting in on a few night photography classes, he had a revelation when the subject of light-painting came up. Here were techniques that would be perfect for capturing the atmosphere and mystery of the modern ghost towns and epic junkyards he was already exploring.

After years of development, Troy's early vision has been fully realized through his unique style and technique. The colored lighting is done with a flashlight or strobe flash masked with theatrical lighting gels. It's effect reanimates these dead places, turning them into mutant tableaus of some vaguely familiar parallel universe. The minutes-long exposures allow the stars to spiral around Polaris and the moving clouds to smear ethereally across the sky. Many of these subjects are already gone; bulldozed, burned down, subdivided, melted for scrap or simply vanished beneath the shifting desert sand.

While there are minor digital adjustments to some of the photographs, the lighting effects are all done “in-camera” during the exposure. These images are not Photoshop creations.

Since 1998 Troy's work has been online in one form or another, and his low cost / high impact lighting techniques have been adopted by amateur and professional photographers all over the world.

In addition to countless contributory appearances in print and on the web, Troy’s surrealist night photography has been published in two monographs: "Lost America" in 2003 and the award winning "Night Vision" in 2008. Both books examine the evolution and eventual abandonment of the communities, structures and social iconography spawned during 20th century America's western expansion--and the modern Urban Exploration culture that finds strange comfort in dancing through its ruins.

SHOWS
Off the Grid- Kumukumu Gallery, New York, NY
Darkness Darkness- Three Columns Gallery, Harvard University, MA
Night Light- Lightbox Gallery, Astoria, OR
Lost America- Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA
Boneyard- Lucky JuJu Pinball Club, Alameda, CA
Night Photography- Truxtop Gallery, Silverlake, CA
Wheels- The Montclair Gallery, Oakland, CA
The Glory of Living- Cyclorama performance at “The Playhouse” in San Francisco, CA.
Lost America- Center For The Performing Arts, Mountain View, CA
The Brightmail Invitational Night Photography Exhibition- San Francisco, CA
St. Michael's Alley, Palo Alto, CA
Renzo Salon, San Francisco, CA
The 540 Club, San Francisco, CA
Mae’s Coffeehouse, Berkeley, CA

TELEVISION
The Big Shot- Singapore
Artland- UK

BOOKS
Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration- monograph, Troy Paiva, Chronicle Books
Lost America- monograph, Troy Paiva, Motorbooks International

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER / WRITER
The NEW Joy of Digital Photography- Lark Books
Night Photography: Finding Your Way In The Dark- Focal Press
Night and Low-Light Photography- Amphoto Books
Weird Arizona- Barnes and Noble Books
Weird California- Barnes and Noble Books
Weird Texas- Barnes and Noble Books
Weird Nevada- Barnes and Noble Books
Weird USA- Barnes and Noble Books
Creative Vision- AVA Academia Books
Lighting- AVA Academia Books
As Long As The Moon Shall Rise- Holy Cow Press

MAGAZINES
Air & Space Magazine- feature article
Hemmings Magazine- feature article
Hot Rod Magazine- feature article
Automobile Magazine- feature article
Trend Magazine- feature article
Car & Techno- feature article
S7- feature article
Mondo Arc- feature article
Times Journal of Photography- feature article, interview
Digital Camera Magazine- feature article, interview
San Francisco Magazine
Elena Magazine- feature article, interview
JPG Magazine- Issue 5 “Photography is NOT a Crime”
JPG Magazine- Issue 10 “Beauty Redefined”
Focus Storia
Yahoo Magazine
Rod and Custom
Popular Photography (2004 & 2009)
E Week

COVERS
Middle School Science- McGraw Hill
Strategy By Design- Palgrave Macmillan
Creative Vision- AVA Academia Books
Snakebite- Stan Ridgway
Holiday in Dirt- Stan Ridgway
As the Dark Wave Swells- The Bambi Molesters
Lost Wages- Magik Vapor
So Much for the Classics- Black & White Band
Late for the Show- Brian Rung
Sound and Diversity- Leiah
Penny Black- Penny Black
Red Sands- James O’Keefe
Heart of Anthracite- Campbell McGrath
American Graveyards- Ray Nayler, TTA Press
Crimewave- Anthology, TTA Press

TEACHING & LECTURES
The Pearsonville Night Photography and Light Painting Workshops
2008-2010: Owner-operator of a semi-annual 3-day workshop held in a Mojave Desert auto junkyard.

2003: Santa Monica College, CA.
2005: The Las Vegas Book Festival
1990-2005: The Nocturnes Workshops
2006: UC Berkeley Photo Department
2007-2009: San Francisco City College
2009: Fagerhult Lighting, London, England
2010: Industrial Light and Magic, San Francisco, CA