A 2,000 Mile Photographic Odyssey of the West

A London photographer and a Parisian photographer drive into the West.

It sounds like the setup to a bad joke, one of those “a priest and a rabbi walk into a bar” kind of jokes.

Iranian-born Maryam Eisler is the Londoner. American-born Alexei Riboud is the Frenchman. In 2024, they flew to Houston, embarking on a 2,000-mile, month long road trip taking them across Texas, north through New Mexico, west to the Navajo Nation in Arizona, and, finally, into Utah.

Their pictures can be seen during “The New American West: Photography in Conversation,” on view at Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier Gallery in Chelsea (555 W 25th St 6th floor, New York, NY 10001) from June 11 to July 11, 2025.

An exhibition – and book – was not the point of this adventure; that came later. This trip was a classic western getaway.

“We both love the American West, we were both separated from significant others and had older kids – we had time on our hands – and it was a big leap of faith based on the purity of this friendship we had, and trust in that,” Eisler said. “We became teenagers. He's like, ‘Do you want to do this?’ I'm like, ‘Sure. Let's go!’”

Teenagers again.

Maryam Eisler Vintage Stardust Motel Signage, US-90, TX

On the Road

Eisler and Riboud were best friends in high school who went their separate ways after graduation. In the days before texting and Facebook, that was that.

Until it wasn’t. the pair were thrown back together unknowingly in 2023 in a What’s App group chat planning a high school reunion.

“It's just a bunch of numbers and this random number tags me; I guess I had my name attached to my number. ‘Maryam, do you remember me,’” Eisler recalls. “’(This is) Alexei Riboud.’ You're joking. Do I remember you? You were my best friend and you disappeared on me, what happened?”

Reconnected, Riboud coincidently found himself in London soon after. His mother, Barbara Chase, was having a retrospective at Serpentine Galleries.  

“It was crazy, and it was like we left off, where we left off, as if 38 years had not gone by,” Eisler said. “Then we discovered that we're both photographers.”

Why the U.S. West? Why not southeast Asia or Africa or anywhere else in the world?

Both photographers had spent time previously in the West while living in America. Both had an affinity for its places and spaces.

“It's a part of the world, I don't know what it is, I'm not a heebie-jeebie spiritual person, but I feel very good when I'm out there in the desert, I feel at home,” Eisler said. “There's something in me that ties me back there somehow, spiritually. I can't explain it, but it always feels right.”

Millions of people know exactly what she means.

Riboud’s photography is particularly interested in the margins. People living on the margins of society. The margins of countries. He wanted to shoot the U.S.-Mexico border.

But again, their journey wasn’t designed as a work trip.

“I think we both needed a moment of separation from the urban, from day-to-day responsibilities, and you know, that's always a great answer: the West,” Eisler continued. “Hours and hours on a road where you don't see a human in sight. It was such a cathartic, centering adventure. I even told my kids, this is my moment. They're in their 20s. If you really need me, get in touch, otherwise, please don't. I will, but don't get in touch. Just let me be.”

The photographs taken during their visit reveal the unique perspective each artist brings to the same landscapes. They shot side-by-side, but never shared images, proving that photography is shaped by perspective.

Alexei Riboud Car wreck, Shafter Ghost Town, Texas, USA, 2024

They went to Marfa, TX, Presidio, NM, Santa Fe, Espanola, NM, Ghost Ranch, Page, AZ. Ghost towns, cemeteries, desolate stretches of highway.

“I remember US route 90 in Texas, in the Chihuahuan Desert, there's a massive crack going from one side of the road to the other,” Eisler said. “I had to take that picture because it was, to me, so symbolic of not only American society, it's really the world. It's this crack that's taking place, the gap which is getting larger and larger between the haves and the have nots, cultural gaps, theological gaps, ways of thinking, economic gaps.”

They saw Antelope Canyon. Bustling cities. New Mexico’s Pueblos. National Parks.  

“I remember standing at White Sands National Park one afternoon, it was at dusk and the sun was setting, and it was like (a) Rothko (painting) in front of me – the reds and the cherries and the oranges and purples and mauves,” Eisler remembers. “I've never had that kind of experience. I had almost – dare I say – an out of body experience. I just stood there watching the sunset and I don't know if it was two seconds, I don't know if it was 30 seconds, something happened, and then I came back. That's the only way I can describe it.”

Awe inspiring nature – “big nature” in Eisler’s words – and the impact of man.

“We're both interested in the hand of man in nature. There's beautiful nature, you feel insignificant in that part of the world, but at the same time, we spent time in Los Alamos, we spent time in White Sands National Park which used to be a missile range; there is the hand of man at play and in nature,” Eisler said. “There's beauty and there's destruction. Beauty and there's dereliction. Car cemetery after car cemetery after car cemetery.”

They saw the border wall in El Paso.

“It’s a crossroad of narratives culturally and economically,” Riboud said. “I was fascinated by these layered territories artificially separated by the wall. I took a series of images literally looking through the wall using the grid formed by the metal structure – an infinity of small squares that allow to perceive the other side. It’s a testimony of how your brain recreates an image based on fragmented information. It’s also an allegory of how human beings will reconnect with the other side of a wall that has no natural justifications.”

And then they returned. And that was that.

Until it wasn’t.

Maryam Eisler Car Junkyard, Los Alamos, NM

The Trip Becomes Something More

Professional duty requires Eisler be active on Instagram posting her shots. That’s typically the female figure. She had little experience with documentary or landscape photography prior to her western sojourn.

“I posted a few images from the trip, and it got a lot of attention. I think the West has always made people dream. I think it's an association with books, with films, with country music,” Eisler said. “It’s a dream for a lot of people and you cannot imagine the number of comments that I got and (direct messages) – ‘I want to know more. Can you please tell me more? I'm planning a trip. Can you help me plan?’ I've never experienced so many comments.”

One of those comments came from art historian and curator Carrie Scott. They had worked together previously. Scott was obsessed with the trip and the West and wanted to learn more.

Scott had also previously handled Riboud’s father’s photography. He was a professional Magnum photojournalist. She convinced Eisler and Riboud to meet with her in London. She convinced them the photographs from their adventure should become a book.

Not all the photographs, Eisler alone took roughly 8,600.

“West West: Twin Perspectives on the American West” is a limited-edition slipcased three-volume set capturing the complexities and contradictions of the West through the duo’s distinct, yet complementary perspectives.

Scott convinced Howard Greenberg to look at the images and write the book’s forward. Greenberg’s name and gallery are the gold standard of fine art photography.

Scott wasn’t satisfied. She believed Riboud and Eisler’s pictures merited a wider showing, greater context.

“It was (Greenberg’s) idea, with Carrie, to take this a step further and put this contemporary dialog with the West in the context of a dialog with history,” Eisler explains.

On view during the exhibition at Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier Gallery, Eisler and Riboud’s 2024 photographs from the West will be shown alongside iconic Western photography by Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Bruce Davidson, Joel Meyerowitz, Edward Weston, and others. Collectively, the images challenge traditional tropes, weaving stories of resilience, identity, and cultural transformation.

“The great artists. The great photographers who've looked at the West historically speaking. That comes with a great deal of enthusiasm, excitement, but also responsibility,” Eisler said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I'm actually going to be compared to these people.’”

Bear in mind, Eisler’s professional photography came later in life – in her late 40s.

“These big names, they've defined the West on so many levels, but it also made me think that the region is an evolving region, that perhaps there's still room for new narratives and new stories, and that perhaps our contemporary narrative can be an addition to what has existed, and that this is a forever evolving story,” Eisler said.

Indeed it is.

The West is never finished. Its story never complete. Its scale, nuance, and complexity far too great for any one photographer or road trip to capture. That’s part of what keeps people going West, and they always will.