Last week I had the opportunity to photograph Detroit for The Guardian newspaper in London. The story is about the auto industry, of course, and how the Big 3's declining market share and constant cutbacks are affecting folks here. This is difficult work for me because I don't like to produce photos of Detroit that reinforce the negative images that people have. The dying rust belt city, looks like a war zone, etc. Lord knows there are enough photographs out there already to prove this. And unfortunately, there is much truth in this. The amount of decay in this city is visually overwhelming. And while this particular mythology of Detroit is true, it's only part of the whole story. But, and this is part that sucks, in the context of the news of the day, it's the only story that anyone is interested in hearing about.
See the story here and the slideshow here.
See the story here and the slideshow here.
2 comments:
That's definitely a bad situation all the way around, but I think you've handled it in the best way--by producing really strong work that attempts to tell the story beyond just "there sure is a lot of rust and broken glass in Detroit."
And, seriously, the work really is great. I really love the two-tone building.
Thanks Tom. Another tough aspect for me is having other people edit the work. (I sound like such a complainer...) I did put together a wider edit that includes some of the people we talked to.
http://tinyurl.com/5lqe5w
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