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"Photographic surveys have become important portraits of a place in time - and one method by which the collision points of land, culture and change are focused for future generations," says Klett. "The long-term goal of the ASU field program is to build a series of surveys that create a larger, continuously changing portrait of place that moves and responds to both land and people."

Klett has authored several renowned photography books, most recently, After the Ruins, a historical and emotional collection of photos that compare San Francisco areas ruined in the 1906 earthquake and fires to the same locations in 2006. The Los Angeles Times said that in his book, "Klett exposes not just a nearly physical erasure - in which contemporary San Francisco has literally superimposed itself on the phantom city of 1906 - but also the idea that the past itself is little more than an illusion."

ASU's field photo program begins with a project-based, out-of-classroom experience where students learn methods and techniques that apply to landscape photography in ways that parallel field programs in the physical sciences. Students will work in Phoenix and on the borderlands of Mexico, collaborating with faculty on projects that have exhibitable and publishable outcomes, like Klett's 2004 project Third Views, Second Sights  www.thirdview.org.

"The new field photography program is a project-based approach to learning that gives students practical opportunities to produce works that are of interest to multiple fields," says Klett.  "There is no other program like this in photography, either within or outside of academia."

The field program's first project, Phoenix Transect, began documenting the landscape and urban areas of Maricopa County in spring 2007. The photos and video are the first stage of an ongoing project that will track the Phoenix area over an extended period of time.  The goal is to engage artists and residents in a dialogue about their community.