November 12, 2026
Douglas McCulloh
Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025
California Museum of Photography
October 3 - December 19, 2026
Douglas McCulloh
Douglas McCulloh was an innovative artist, writer and curator who unexpectedly passed away in 2025, at the age of 66. In addition to creating numerous photographic series and digital projects, he was also a well regarded curator, as well as interim director of California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTS. Over his tenure at CMP, he curated more than twenty-five exhibitions many which focused on both the conceptual aspects of photography and traditional photography's transition into the digital realm.
Concurrent with his curatorial pursuits was his own photographic practice. On view at the California Museum of Photography is the expansive exhibit Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025 which includes many series that showcase his unique approach to photography. Also on view is documentation of one of his best known collaborative projects, The Great Picture (2006) where McCulloh and five colleagues — Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, and Clayton Spada — transformed an abandoned military hanger into a pinhole camera, simultaneously creating the world's largest camera and the world's largest photograph. The Great Picture (what they termed "The Legacy Project") was conceived at a time when analog photography was being supplanted by digital and the artists involved were specifically interested in the parallel developments of technology in both warfare and photography as well as the ancient Chinese roots of the camera obscura.
Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025 unfolds over three floors of the museum and presents McCulloh as a thoughtful photographer and an astute observer. He turned his camera toward the expansive cityscape, characters and antics of Los Angeles from obscure neighborhoods to Hollywood Boulevard. More importantly, he devised arcane rules and strategies (akin to those employed by conceptual or performance artists) that dictated where and when he made his images.
The earliest series on view is Chance Encounters: Photographs From Seven Years of Chance-driven Journeys Across Los Angeles (1992–1999). A generous selection from more than 23,000 black and white 35mm images are presented on dark gray walls that contrast their brushed silver frames and similarly framed texts. Also included is a large floor based map of McCulloh's journey across the city which has been divided into specific sections. The conceptual framework that drove the project was based on chance as McCulloh divided Los Angeles County into quarter-mile sections and each time he set out to make his pictures, he randomly drew coordinates from a jar and traveled there to shoot. Each black and white photograph is the result of a chance encounter with whomever he spoke to, or what caught his eye within that specific section of the map. The photographs are accompanied by a short caption that described the encounter along with its coordinates — date, location, time and mileage. While many of the images have the aura of street photography, slightly angled and high contrast, McCulloh's intention was to create a cohesive whole from the disparate places he visited.
McCulloh applied similar strategies to create images in Hollywood. For the series Lost Among the Stars (2003–2006), he again worked within specific systems — ninety coordinates that became a constellation of overlapping circles, each two-thousand feet in diameter. Tens of thousands of black and white photographs were created within these geographic circles and collectively became his interpretation of Hollywood during the three years he photographed there. The images are also accompanied by textual descriptions as well as coordinates. McCulloh's photographs range from close cropped portraits to distant shots of parades or crowds that encapsulate the range of activities along the boulevard.
Douglas McCulloh
The people depicted in the color images that make up On the Beach: Chance Portraits from Two Shores (2000–2006) are complicit and aware they are being photographed as they pose for the camera. Fascinated with how people present themselves when practically naked, McCulloh, in collaboration with Jacques Garnier, engaged with beachgoers and invited them to pose for the camera. The photographers created a quasi-studio on California and Florida beaches that included strobe lights. The set up intrigued passersby who were invited to pose as they were parading on the beach anyway. The portraits captured them showing off, devoid of inhibitions. Though conceptually divergent, the images in Submerged (2003–2015) are visually similar to those in On the Beach. Here, McCulloh used an underwater camera to capture floating bodies submerged in water. The images are printed on translucent fabric and suspended from the ceiling where they have a dream-like presence. The irony in this series is that McCulloh originally gave the underwater camera to his surfer friend Kevin Boyle but after Boyle passed away, it was returned to McCulloh. The resulting images become transcendent, especially after McCulloh's untimely death.
McCulloh delighted in excess and with the advent of digital photography the number of images one could take grew exponentially. McCulloh embraced the limitlessness of this technology. For 20,000 Portraits: A Democracy of Faces (2001), he photographed people visiting the Los Angles County Fair. The cacophony of faces he digitally recorded for the project are meant to represent diversity and become an archive of the vast range of people in Southern California. In a later project, Google Image Search (2005–2014), he entered incongruous keywords into Google like 'Santa' and 'Shame' or 'Conflict,' and then created digital collages from the images that Google returned as the result of his search. The large scale composites are grids of square images organized conceptually, as well as formally, and show McCulloh's insight as an early curator of a limitless archive if digital data.
Two compelling projects can be seen as interventions and illustrate McCulloh's willingness to anonymously insert himself into a scene or image. For Taking Pictures (2005-2007), McCulloh visited model homes for sale in Southern California and replaced framed images on display with other stock imagery of the same size, shape and type. The intervention was a private performance as no one knew of his actions. McCulloh both savored and critiqued the comfort and security these model homes offered. On display are the absconded photographs along with captions stating the room where McCulloh found them, as well as the price and square footage of the house.
The images that resonated the most for me were from the project Futile Memorials and All Wars (2003-2009). McCulloh created and documented performative interventions at the site of a former Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, CA. The series focuses on the abandoned facility where McCulloh displaces objects or adds a painted elements like a handprint to call attention to acts of war, those who perished, and the futility of these engagements. He states that the work engages with time and mortality. The subtle color photographs are juxtaposed with two texts; one is a recounting of a memory by a soldier who served in a past war, while the other is a short description of McCulloh's intervention. For example, an image of a broken tree is accompanied by a passage from Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown juxtaposed with McCulloh's description: "The pine tree had been mutilated. The jutting trunk testified it had taken extreme force. The debris was long since cleared away, leaving just a few fragments. I picked up a broken twig as big around as a pencil. Held at just the right angle, it seemed to restore the tree." The project and the images are both visually and poetically evocative while simultaneously serving as reminders of the futility of war.
I knew Doug as a curator. He included my work in several exhibitions at the CMP, but I was not familiar with the breadth of his own photographic practice. I had seen and was impressed by The Great Picture, but was unaware of the depth of his work and the conceptual integrity of his investigations. Dispatches brings to light the work of a 'great' man who was able to juggle two demanding careers. I am glad that the CMP has put together such a comprehensive exhibition that honors his work and sheds light on not only what he did for other photographs, but celebrates his own photographic ouvre.
Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025
California Museum of Photography
October 3 - December 19, 2026
Douglas McCulloh
Douglas McCulloh was an innovative artist, writer and curator who unexpectedly passed away in 2025, at the age of 66. In addition to creating numerous photographic series and digital projects, he was also a well regarded curator, as well as interim director of California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTS. Over his tenure at CMP, he curated more than twenty-five exhibitions many which focused on both the conceptual aspects of photography and traditional photography's transition into the digital realm.
Concurrent with his curatorial pursuits was his own photographic practice. On view at the California Museum of Photography is the expansive exhibit Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025 which includes many series that showcase his unique approach to photography. Also on view is documentation of one of his best known collaborative projects, The Great Picture (2006) where McCulloh and five colleagues — Jerry Burchfield, Mark Chamberlain, Jacques Garnier, Rob Johnson, and Clayton Spada — transformed an abandoned military hanger into a pinhole camera, simultaneously creating the world's largest camera and the world's largest photograph. The Great Picture (what they termed "The Legacy Project") was conceived at a time when analog photography was being supplanted by digital and the artists involved were specifically interested in the parallel developments of technology in both warfare and photography as well as the ancient Chinese roots of the camera obscura.
Dispatches: The Photography of Douglas McCulloh, 1990–2025 unfolds over three floors of the museum and presents McCulloh as a thoughtful photographer and an astute observer. He turned his camera toward the expansive cityscape, characters and antics of Los Angeles from obscure neighborhoods to Hollywood Boulevard. More importantly, he devised arcane rules and strategies (akin to those employed by conceptual or performance artists) that dictated where and when he made his images.
The earliest series on view is Chance Encounters: Photographs From Seven Years of Chance-driven Journeys Across Los Angeles (1992–1999). A generous selection from more than 23,000 black and white 35mm images are presented on dark gray walls that contrast their brushed silver frames and similarly framed texts. Also included is a large floor based map of McCulloh's journey across the city which has been divided into specific sections. The conceptual framework that drove the project was based on chance as McCulloh divided Los Angeles County into quarter-mile sections and each time he set out to make his pictures, he randomly drew coordinates from a jar and traveled there to shoot. Each black and white photograph is the result of a chance encounter with whomever he spoke to, or what caught his eye within that specific section of the map. The photographs are accompanied by a short caption that described the encounter along with its coordinates — date, location, time and mileage. While many of the images have the aura of street photography, slightly angled and high contrast, McCulloh's intention was to create a cohesive whole from the disparate places he visited.
McCulloh applied similar strategies to create images in Hollywood. For the series Lost Among the Stars (2003–2006), he again worked within specific systems — ninety coordinates that became a constellation of overlapping circles, each two-thousand feet in diameter. Tens of thousands of black and white photographs were created within these geographic circles and collectively became his interpretation of Hollywood during the three years he photographed there. The images are also accompanied by textual descriptions as well as coordinates. McCulloh's photographs range from close cropped portraits to distant shots of parades or crowds that encapsulate the range of activities along the boulevard.
Douglas McCulloh
The people depicted in the color images that make up On the Beach: Chance Portraits from Two Shores (2000–2006) are complicit and aware they are being photographed as they pose for the camera. Fascinated with how people present themselves when practically naked, McCulloh, in collaboration with Jacques Garnier, engaged with beachgoers and invited them to pose for the camera. The photographers created a quasi-studio on California and Florida beaches that included strobe lights. The set up intrigued passersby who were invited to pose as they were parading on the beach anyway. The portraits captured them showing off, devoid of inhibitions. Though conceptually divergent, the images in Submerged (2003–2015) are visually similar to those in On the Beach. Here, McCulloh used an underwater camera to capture floating bodies submerged in water. The images are printed on translucent fabric and suspended from the ceiling where they have a dream-like presence. The irony in this series is that McCulloh originally gave the underwater camera to his surfer friend Kevin Boyle but after Boyle passed away, it was returned to McCulloh. The resulting images become transcendent, especially after McCulloh's untimely death.
McCulloh delighted in excess and with the advent of digital photography the number of images one could take grew exponentially. McCulloh embraced the limitlessness of this technology. For 20,000 Portraits: A Democracy of Faces (2001), he photographed people visiting the Los Angles County Fair. The cacophony of faces he digitally recorded for the project are meant to represent diversity and become an archive of the vast range of people in Southern California. In a later project, Google Image Search (2005–2014), he entered incongruous keywords into Google like 'Santa' and 'Shame' or 'Conflict,' and then created digital collages from the images that Google returned as the result of his search. The large scale composites are grids of square images organized conceptually, as well as formally, and show McCulloh's insight as an early curator of a limitless archive if digital data.
Two compelling projects can be seen as interventions and illustrate McCulloh's willingness to anonymously insert himself into a scene or image. For Taking Pictures (2005-2007), McCulloh visited model homes for sale in Southern California and replaced framed images on display with other stock imagery of the same size, shape and type. The intervention was a private performance as no one knew of his actions. McCulloh both savored and critiqued the comfort and security these model homes offered. On display are the absconded photographs along with captions stating the room where McCulloh found them, as well as the price and square footage of the house.
The images that resonated the most for me were from the project Futile Memorials and All Wars (2003-2009). McCulloh created and documented performative interventions at the site of a former Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, CA. The series focuses on the abandoned facility where McCulloh displaces objects or adds a painted elements like a handprint to call attention to acts of war, those who perished, and the futility of these engagements. He states that the work engages with time and mortality. The subtle color photographs are juxtaposed with two texts; one is a recounting of a memory by a soldier who served in a past war, while the other is a short description of McCulloh's intervention. For example, an image of a broken tree is accompanied by a passage from Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown juxtaposed with McCulloh's description: "The pine tree had been mutilated. The jutting trunk testified it had taken extreme force. The debris was long since cleared away, leaving just a few fragments. I picked up a broken twig as big around as a pencil. Held at just the right angle, it seemed to restore the tree." The project and the images are both visually and poetically evocative while simultaneously serving as reminders of the futility of war.
I knew Doug as a curator. He included my work in several exhibitions at the CMP, but I was not familiar with the breadth of his own photographic practice. I had seen and was impressed by The Great Picture, but was unaware of the depth of his work and the conceptual integrity of his investigations. Dispatches brings to light the work of a 'great' man who was able to juggle two demanding careers. I am glad that the CMP has put together such a comprehensive exhibition that honors his work and sheds light on not only what he did for other photographs, but celebrates his own photographic ouvre.