Wandering the deserted backroads of the American Southwest, Troy Paiva has explored the abandoned underbelly of America since the 1970s. Since 1989 he’s been taking pictures of it . . .

At night, by the light of the full moon.

A multi-discipline artist, he was seeking a new medium to create personal art while he worked in a heavily art directed graphic design job. Sitting in on a few night photography classes, he had a revelation when the subject of light-painting came up. Here were techniques that were perfect to capture the atmosphere and mystery of the modern ghost towns and epic junkyards he was already exploring.

The minutes-long exposures allow the stars to spiral around Polaris and the moving clouds to smear ethereally across the sky. The colored lighting was done with flashlight or strobe flash masked with theatrical lighting gels. This lighting reanimates these dead places, turning them into mutant tableaus of some vaguely familiar parallel universe. Many of these objects are already gone; bulldozed, burned down, subdivided, melted for scrap or just vanished under the shifting desert sand.

While there’s some minor digital adjustment to some of these photographs, the lighting effects were all done “in-camera” during the exposure. These images are not Photoshop creations.

Since 1998 Troy's lostamerica.com site has been online in one form or another and his low cost / high impact lighting techniques have been implemented by amateur and professional photographers all over the world.

Troy’s surrealist night photography has been featured in two monographs: "Lost America" in 2003 and "Night Vision" in 2008. Both books examine the evolution and eventual abandonment of the communities, structures and social iconography spawned during 20th century America's western expansion, and the modern Urban Exploration culture that finds strange comfort in dancing through its debris.


SHOWS
"Darkness Darkness" Three Columns Gallery, Harvard University, MA
"Darkness Darkness" The Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, Boston, MA
"Lost America" Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA
"Boneyard" Lucky JuJu Pinball Club, Alameda, CA
Truxtop Gallery, Silverlake, CA
The Montclair Gallery, Oakland, CA
“The Glory of Living”- Cyclorama performance at “The Playhouse” in San Francisco, CA.
Center For The Performing Arts, Mountain View, CA
The Brightmail Invitational Night Photography Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
St. Michael's Alley, Palo Alto, CA
Renzo Salon, San Francisco, CA
The 540 Club, San Francisco, CA
Mae’s Coffeehouse, Berkeley, CA

BOOKS
"Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration" monograph Troy Paiva, Chronicle Books
“Lost America” monograph, Troy Paiva, Motorbooks International
“Weird Arizona” Barnes and Noble Books. Contributing photographer and writer
“Weird California” Barnes and Noble Books. Contributing photographer and writer
“Weird Texas” Barnes and Noble Books. Contributing photographer and writer
“Weird Nevada” Barnes and Noble Books. Contributing photographer and writer
“Weird USA” Barnes and Noble Books. Contributing photographer
"Creative Vision”- Jeremy Webb, AVA Academia Books
“Lighting”- David Prakel, AVA Academia Books
“As Long As The Moon Shall Rise” Ellen Moore Anderson, Holy Cow Press

MAGAZINES
"Air & Space Magazine" feature article
“Hot Rod” magazine, feature article
“Automobile Magazine” feature article
"Trend Magazine" feature article
"Car & Techno" magazine, feature article
“Times Journal of Photography” feature Article, interview
“Digital Camera Magazine” feature Article, interview
JPG Magazine- Issue 5 “Photography is NOT a Crime”
JPG Magazine- Issue 10 “Beauty Redefined”
"Yahoo Magazine"
"Rod and Custom"
"Popular Photography"
"E Week"

COVERS
"Snakebite"- Stan Ridgway
"Holiday in Dirt" - Stan Ridgway
“Lost Wages”- Magik Vapor
“So Much for the Classics”- Black & White Band
“Late for the Show"- Brian Rung
“Sound and Diversity”- Leiah
“Penny Black”- Penny Black
“Red Sands”- James O’Keefe
“Heart of Anthracite”- Campbell McGrath
"American Graveyards" Ray Nayler, TTA Press
“Crimewave Magazine” Anthology, TTA Press

LECTURES
Las Vegas Book Festival
The Nocturnes Workshops
San Francisco City College
Santa Monica College, CA.
UC Berkeley Photo Department