Author Archives: Noah
Somewhere, America
This set of images is from a brand new series… the newest of new really. I shot a good portion of these within the last three days, and I only just finished scanning this particular set early this afternoon. This new series is tentatively entitled, “Somewhere, America.” Here is my artist’s statement…
As a whole, the American roadside landscape has become highly gentrified. Almost no matter where we are traveling in this country we encounter the same roadside motifs. Gas stations, parking lots, signage, fast food restaurants, rest areas, other vehicles, and maybe the occasional motel on a longer journey. It gives the feeling that although we’re always somewhere, we could be almost anywhere.
This is especially true at night where the more distant landscape which defines a particular region is obscured by darkness. Yet as banal and ordinary as these ever-present roadside motifs are, we are all still constantly recording their visual stimulus as memories, fleeting as these may be. The American roadside landscape is a visual vernacular we all understand, even if it’s unintentional, as it’s imbedded on our collective subconscious.
By grouping four different motifs together as a single piece I want to allow free association between the individual images, thus constructing a visual framework to which each viewer will add their own thoughts, feelings, and memories about the American roadside landscape. “Somewhere, America” is intended to give each viewer a unique, albeit fractured narrative which examines a major facet of our automotive driven culture.
Fotofest Portfolio
I’m going to Fotofest at the end of the month and I’m going to show a portfolio of 20 images from my Blue Water series. I wanted to select my strongest images while still showing the diversity and breadth of the series. Here’s the selection I’m planning on showing…
Abandoned Garage
Filed under Digital
Here’s another image from my new conceptual series I’m working on.
Freighter Photographs
Freighters photographs are often about as interesting as your average band photo… in the fact that they aren’t interesting at all. Particularly in the Blue Water area in which I live, bad ship pictures are about as expected as bad pet pictures most places. But I have no problem using subject matter that flirts with cliché, since if I’m doing so it’s in a thoughtful, intentional way. I’m really happy with how this image turned out. I think it has a kind brooding, mysterious quality that I’ve never seen before in a picture of a freighter. I’m planning on using it in the conceptual series I mentioned in my last post.
New Conceptual Series
I’ve been really busy for the last couple of months and I haven’t been able to post, but I’ve been working on a lot of new stuff. I’m almost finished with a new conceptual series, so I figured I’d post a few images I’m planning on using for it in the meantime until it’s done. I’m planning for the series to have a darker mood than any of my previous work, but in a very subtle way. I want it to be something that leaves the viewer with the sense that there’s something a bit off, nothing too obvious but still retaining that slightly foreboding undercurrent. I think this motel image is a pretty good example of the type of feeling the series will have, although as a whole it’s going to feature all sorts of different types of subject matter since it’s based around the underlying concept.
January 3rd to January 6th
Filed under Thoughts
With the announcement of the demise of Polaroid last fall, I decided I wanted to do one last project with one of my favorite films. I already had 100 sheets of 600 film I had bought before they discontinued production, so I thought that doing a conceptual project that required that I shoot each image with a high degree intentionality would be a good way to send off a medium that had helped define one of my two major shooting aesthetics. I decided that a road trip with my sister would be a good subject for the series, as it would allow me to combine one of the main themes of my work, road trips, with a more personal element by including a large number of images of my sister. The series functions as a personal photographic dairy of sorts… it give the viewer a chance to see our 4 day, nearly 2000 mile road trip from January 3rd to January 6th the way I saw it as it was happening. The sights I’m drawn to aren’t necessarily the most well know, iconic, or traditionally photogenic places that we passed along the way, but rather the things I’m seeing and experiencing as I traverse the northeastern US and Canada with a close companion. I view the series as the most personal body of work that I’ve ever created, as the intimate subject matter I chose to include decreases the austere, aesthetic distance I usually place between my subject and myself when shooting. Out of my looser, more spontaneous, offhand work that characterized my use of Polaroid 600 film, I view this series as my greatest achievement.
After I made January 3rd to January 6th into a handmade artist book that I’m extremely proud of, I decided I would try making it available as a blurb book to increase it’s potential of being seen. Here’s a link to January 3rd to January 6th on the blurb website.
Here’s my artists statement for the series as it appears in forward of the book…
As I walked through the cold morning air on January 3rd, I snapped my first image before I left my driveway. I then set out on the road with a map, a general direction, and the intent to create a personal body of work using my 100 remaining sheets of Polaroid film. With my sister as my traveling companion for the next four days, we drove 1875 miles across the Northeastern United States and Canada. After we returned to my house on January 6th, I said goodbye to my sister and captured my final image with my Polaroid camera. The following pages present these 100 images in the sequence they were taken as an intimate document of my road trip.
