from 2005 to 2014, moore photographed the people and landscape of “great american desert,” which roughly includes the area west of the 100th meridian to the rocky mountains, from texas north to canada. the area is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the country, “where the daily reality is often defined by drought and hardship.” to make many of the photographs, moore collaborated with doug dean, the pilot of a single-engine aircraft, to create bird’s-eye perspectives revealing the vastness of the land. rather than flying high above the plains, moore chose perspectives that have “the sense of being within the landscape rather than above it.” for an essay accompanying moore’s photographs in "the new york times magazine", inara verzemnieks wrote, “from above, the land is like one endless, unpunctuated idea — sand, tumbleweed, turkey, bunch stem, buffalo, meadow, cow, rick of hay, creek, sunflower, sand — and only rarely did a house or a windmill or a barn suddenly appear to suspend the sense of limitlessness.” on the ground, moore photographed the people who inhabit this unforgiving landscape and the evidence of their efforts, from active homesteads to abandoned schoolhouses. these photographs are published in moore’s newest monograph: "dirt meridian" (damiani, 2015).