Across Roads: The Continental Divide through New Mexico

In 2005 on one of my maps I noticed a faint line running through New Mexico, and on closer inspection discovered it to indicate The Continental Divide, the geographic watershed ‘where east meets west.’ The Divide struck me as quite a significant aspect of the geography – but how could I capture something that was in essence, invisible? I found no previous attempts at photographing the Divide where it crossed the 23 highways in New Mexico and decided that on my next trip I would visit this part of the landscape and record what I found. I subsequently photographed the remainder of these ‘imaginary intersections’ in 2007. The images here are in sequence starting in the southwest corner near Animas, New Mexico. Each image includes the relevant information that I needed at the shoot, plus - for the viewer - to make the Divide ‘visible’ by the addition of two arrows – the first indicates the direction of the Divide through the image (on its path from Mexico to Canada) and the second, the direction the viewer is looking, i.e. ↓↓ indicates the Divide is coming straight towards the viewer and the viewer is looking south.