My good friend David McGowan has been working on a very personal photo essay since last summer. He's been documenting garage sale culture in West Michigan as the economy continues to decline and people reevaluate what they truly need and what has to be sold. What's surprising is that as bad as things seemed only six months ago, the bad news has only gotten worse and there isn't a whole lot of hope that things will improve. At least not for a while. People like to say that when the country gets a cold, Michigan gets pneumonia, and that certainly holds true these days. Things are bad in the rest of the country and even worse in Michigan.
I'm One Of Those Americans is respectful and honest and taps into our collective anxiety and resignation. What is frightening is that in this story, I fear we're only at Chapter One and that the rest of the story is going to be a whole lot worse.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
50 States
Stuart Pilkington has an ambitious new project that he's curating called the 50 States Project.
"Each photographer lives in one of the 50 States and during the year long project each photographer will represent the State where they live. Every two months each photographer will be sent an assignment by e-mail, they then have two months to produce one image in response. The images must represent both their style and the State in which they live."
Lots of familiar names on the list of photographers and some unfamiliar names as well. I'm really looking forward to watching this as it develops.
"Each photographer lives in one of the 50 States and during the year long project each photographer will represent the State where they live. Every two months each photographer will be sent an assignment by e-mail, they then have two months to produce one image in response. The images must represent both their style and the State in which they live."
Lots of familiar names on the list of photographers and some unfamiliar names as well. I'm really looking forward to watching this as it develops.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Sorry, No Pictures
As I feared, the disc that I found in my grandparents' old disc camera contained no images. I received the film a few days ago and it was pretty badly fogged, but even so, I didn't see any traces of an image whatsoever. I was really hoping for something spectacular, though it's very likely the camera was never used. Most likely, they received the camera as a gift and never used it. Like the VCR that we gave them or the answering machine.....
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Empty House and Discontinued Film
I don't have a lot of really good photos of my grandparents' house. The photos above were taken in 2002. After my grandparents died, we moved all their stuff out of the house, painted the rooms and put in new carpet to get the house ready to be sold.
Before the new owners moved in, I spent a day photographing the empty house. Not surprisingly, the photos aren't very satisfying in providing a connection to that specific place. Because the carpet in the photographs was not my grandparents' gold 1960's carpet, there is no spark of recognition. Their furniture and knickknacks have been cleared out to make room for the new family. Any connection that's made is the result of squinting and imagining - not the same as identifying specifically with objects and textures. In that sense, the photos are less specific but more universal.
One of the items that I ended up with was their old Kodak disc camera. I was surprised to see that there was still a disc inside. The film is probably from the 1980s, so my expectations are pretty low that there will be anything on this disc. Even so, it's a little exciting to think about what this disc could hold. Maybe a photo of their dog Domino or a birthday party. Or the plum tree my grandpa planted in the backyard. I sent the film to Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas, one of the only labs that still processes and prints disc film. (They are also the last lab to process Kodachrome.) I'll post the photos here if there's anything worth seeing.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Monuments
Today of course is the 50th anniversary of the day that is called "The Day The Music Died". Or less famously, the day that Waylon Jennings didn't die. Sadly, in rock and roll, "Live Fast, Die Young" is a cliche grounded in reality.
I've never been to the site of that plane crash, but in 2004, I photographed the graves of a few Michigan natives for inclusion in a book of rock and roll gravesites. I visited the graves of Fred "Sonic" Smith and Rob Tyner from the MC5, Florence Ballard of the Supremes, David Ruffin and Paul Williams of the Temptations among others. All of the graves I visited were surprisingly modest and well cared for. Jackie Wilson's grave is not Jim Morrison's grave and that is as it should be.
Fred "Sonic" Smith's marker is a stone from a mountain in Scotland where he and his wife Patti Smith used to hike.
The Temptations' Paul Williams' gravesite. He died in 1973. I took this photo in November of 2004, more than 30 years after his suicide, and his grave had fresh lipstick prints.
I've never been to the site of that plane crash, but in 2004, I photographed the graves of a few Michigan natives for inclusion in a book of rock and roll gravesites. I visited the graves of Fred "Sonic" Smith and Rob Tyner from the MC5, Florence Ballard of the Supremes, David Ruffin and Paul Williams of the Temptations among others. All of the graves I visited were surprisingly modest and well cared for. Jackie Wilson's grave is not Jim Morrison's grave and that is as it should be.
Fred "Sonic" Smith's marker is a stone from a mountain in Scotland where he and his wife Patti Smith used to hike.
The Temptations' Paul Williams' gravesite. He died in 1973. I took this photo in November of 2004, more than 30 years after his suicide, and his grave had fresh lipstick prints.
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