Photographer Jim Mangan combines vast desert landscapes and rally car racing in Blast

Jim Mangan is a photographer recognised for a capability to capture vast landscapes. The images grab your attention, so much so you almost feel present at the event. One project of Jim’s that does this breathtakingly is Blast, a collaboration with long time friend and renowned rally car driver Ken Block.

The images taken as part of this series were documented on a journey where the pair travelled “to the desert of southern Utah in a desolate yet breathtaking 75-mile stretch of land between Capital Reef and the Goblin Valley,” explains Jim. Incredibly, these photographs were all taken on 35mm film which seems impossible with their focused yet prepossessingly dusty texture.

Blast is a continuation of Jim’s photography, “transforming relationships between humans and the earth”. Throughout his life the photographer has interacted with the landscape of the American west, with a goal to “put the landscape in motion” with this particular series. In this sense Jim’s photographs “imagine architecture created by car and driver,” as the driver plunges into the momentary chaos of surrounding dust.

With an accompanying film, the series has been published by Dashwood Books and shown as a solo exhibition at Sundance Film Festival in 2015. It has additionally been exhibited in four pop up stores across London, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and in Boy’s Don’t Cry the publication curated by Frank Ocean.