Desert Birds

A cockpit faces an endless desert landscape; a gangway stands in the middle of an abandoned expanse. At the vast aircraft storage grounds in the middle of the desert in the southwestern United States, hundreds of discarded aircraft stand in waiting and contemplate their fate. Normally strictly isolated from the outside world, the storage grounds opened their gates for this project by German photographer Werner Bartsch. In his impressive images we find an ancient specimen of the world's best known transport aircraft Dakota as well as retired airliners like the Boeing Stratocruiser and even President Eisenhower's Air Force One, built in 1948.

Werner Bartsch (*1965) studied communication design / photography. After his studies he lived between New York and Berlin and settled as a freelance photographer in Hamburg in 1996. He is a member of BFF, the German Association of Freelance Photo Designers, and works on assignment for major German and international publications and agencies. His art projects have led him to the various regions of the world.
Sophia Greiff is an assistant at Museum Deichtorhallen Hamburg and a freelance curator and writer on photography.