Proving Ground investigates the legacy of Cold War nuclear test sites through a unique photographic method: burying unexposed large format film. The film is both buried and retrieved at night, allowing only the chemicals, minerals, and sunlight filtered through the soil to expose it. The resulting images offer an alternative photographic history of landscapes that might otherwise be viewed as nondescript tracts of desert and scrub brush. Though the visible effects of nuclear tests may be subtle—marked only by scattered craters and rusted signs warning of radioactivity—the sites, much like the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, have become unlikely refuges for the natural world, indefinitely shielded from development for future generations.