Near an oil field in Baku, Azerbaijan, underground pipes jut from the side of a crater and spew chemical by-products into an oily lake. The pipes hiss as they shoot out liquid. A light mist engulfs photographer Bruce Haley and causes his camera to malfunction. In the last 10 years, the Lemoore native and former combat photographer has been focusing on industrial landscapes and people in post-communist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

Azerbaijan is just one of the former communist countries that Haley has spent time photographing.

Many of the places he visited had been ruined by years of industrial pollution. One example is the town of Copsa Mica, in Transylvania, Romania. In the 1990s it was labeled the most polluted place in Europe.

A carbon black factory operated in Copsa Mica from 1936 to 1993. While under the rule of Nicolai Ceausescu, the factory operated with nearly zero environmental restrictions. Carbon black dust, which can be carcinogenic, permeated the village for nearly 60 years, leaving soot on everything in the area. The stain from decades of deposits is still visible, although the factory has been shut down for 15 years.

"It coated everything in the town," said Haley, who visited the site in 2002. "It's not a joke, the sheep were black, the grass was black. It was an ecological disaster."

Haley's photos from Copsa Mica and other Eastern European locales have been hung at galleries worldwide, including the Ansel Adams Gallery and the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. In fact, the Tokyo show was part of a traveling exhibition that toured all of Japan.

His photographs have been displayed in books, magazines and newspapers worldwide as well.

When Fresno Art Museum Curator Jacqueline Pilar saw Haley's environmental landscape photos, she thought they would coincide well with the other landscape art exhibits currently on display at the Fresno Art Museum.

"I was working with the concept of the landscape and working with the thought that environmental issues are such an important issue in our time. What his work reflects is how man has destroyed our landscape with industry that has contaminated the earth," said Pilar.

Accompanying Haley's landscape photos are seven photos of the Roma, or gypsies of Eastern Europe. Haley spent two years documenting the poorest Roma, who lived in the bleakest corners of Romania.

He found some settlements where families lived in tents of plastic sheeting, or on the edges of garbage dumps.

When he would enter a gypsy camp, he brought a translator and kept his camera hidden in his bag, until he gained trust.

One of his most popular photos he took during this time was of a young Roma mother and her child. Haley said he was immediately drawn to the mother, who stood out because of her light eyes.

"I think what people take away from a lot of my work is that there is a sense of beauty amongst the tragic," said Haley. "There's an individuality to the people, where I don't want them to be a stereotype of the poor. I want them to be individuals, to show their strength, their resilience. I hope I've done them, as individuals, justice."

Haley's exhibit, "Environmental Apocalypse," contains 30 black and white panoramic photos of Eastern European landscapes and people. They can be viewed in the Duncan Gallery of the Fresno Art Museum through Sunday, Aug. 17. Haley will be attending an artist's reception from 5 to 7 p.m. today at the Fresno Art Museum.

The reporter can be reached at 583-2427.

(June 13, 2008)