Tombstone was a gold rush boom town in Arizona, famous today for a little piece of American history that happened there: a gunfight between lawmaker Wyatt Earp and outlaws that has since been represented in films, on TV and in a theatre performance that takes place twice a day every day in Tombstone itself. The show is the story of an all-American hero loved by the US audience – but of course it’s a fake story. Earp wasn’t a golden superhero and, like so many famous historical figures, the events surrounding him and the gunfight are unfocused and blurred. For me, this is a metaphor for how US culture rewrites its history in a way that has little to do with the facts.
My girlfriend – also a photographer – and I went to the theatre show in Tombstone for three days in a row. There are two performances a day, one early in the morning and one at noon. On the first day we booked both, so as to check which was better in terms of the light. The noon one was best – the sun was high and the shadows fell right beneath the bodies.
