Noon in the desert.

′Noon in the Desert′ is taken from the opening line of William E Stafford′s poem, ′At the Bomb Testing Site′, and is a series of photographs which explores the replica neighbourhoods, constructed at the nuclear weapons test sites in Nevada during the 1950s in order to measure the effects of nuclear detonation. As a project, it emerged in response to a tourist postcard Elgar came across of the Las Vegas casino, The Pioneer Club, in which a mushroom cloud can be seen looming over the Nevada desert in the distance. The two localities, known as ′Doom Town′ and ′Survival Town′, were designed to reflect a generic image of American post-war suburbia and were populated by a series of costumed mannequins, strategically placed in mock-up homes. (Source: https://www.annabelelgar.com).