Latest Victim of the Wonderful US Economy...

Uncharacteristically for me, I'm speechless -- and at the moment in tears and I'm not kidding. Thank you very, very much, Kyle.

And thank you all for your kind words about my situation.

I don't gush like this very often, and that's partly because I'm busy / lazy and it takes time, and partly because I really don't see something worth really high praise too often. That's probably as things should be. At any rate, this is what "gushing" looks like from me.

There's an vanishingly small intersection of overlapping circles on the great Venn diagram of Photgraphic Ability between technical skill, an imaginative / artistic eye, and a profound sense of humanity (and by that I mean first a deep understanding of the human beings in your presence, followed by a resulting change in your actions based on what you see and understand about other people around you).

- Many people have a great technical understanding of how to make photographic gear (including Post) create dramatic and dynamic images. There are people here who could make catalog-ready images with a disposable 35mm plastic lens drugstore film camera, without fail.

- Others here know relatively little about the theory and mechanics of what’s happening when the shutter releases, but they SEE well, and can somehow pull an engaging image out of what for most people would be just “stuff.”

- Others seem to have an eery knack for getting a still image of another human being to tell the viewer volumes about that person. They get the exact right instant on film, from just the right angle and perspective, to have the faintest trace of a grin or crinkled eyebrow lead the viewer through a beginning / middle / end of understanding about that person. This comes from a profound kind of empathy, as far as I can tell, on the part of the photographer. They’re just a little better dialed in to what others are experiencing, and their finger is right on the button.

You have all three, and my grand point here is that it’s incredibly rare to find them all in one person. I’ve launched into this novella to make 100% sure you understand what it is you have, and why it is so compelling, in the earnest hope that it fosters more of the same work, if not even better. Specific to that set of images up there, there is both humor (“Future Urbex”) and profound sadness (Broadway’s face – both the complexion of obvious long wear and hard life, and his facial expression which borders on exhaustion). It comes across very clearly through just the images themselves, without even the titles, that the photographer feels a strong emotional connection to the subject material, and is in fact actively mourning as the shots are taken. Yet it never panders. I can imagine versions of these shots that go too far, with hang-dog faces in close crop, set to one side with the empty and idle spaces behind them taking up the other 2/3 of the image. These don't pander - they just show massive capacity about to be idled. The greasy dirty equipment, the well-worn floors, battered columns, and hell even Broadway’s face – all of them have been beaten down and worn out, and are now no longer required, and will be essentially discarded. Jesus. It’s 10am and I need a beer.

Very, very good work. I’ll buy a gigantic glossy copy when it comes out.
 
One more from this past week. If you look mid left frame you'll see a guy in an orange jacket just standing on the catwalk watching the action. I've seen a lot of that -- and done it -- as I think we unconsciously stop to look at something we might not be seeing much of anymore. It's not uncommon to see people just watching when something really big is going on -- but recently it seems like everyone is taking time to just look at things.

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End of an Era: Counting Down the Days in the Teeming Aisle by Entropic Remnants, on Flickr
 
When I was a teenager at school, my brother and I had summer jobs working at the hot end in a glass factory. We were tax-free, so we worked every hour that we could. We worked half an hour on, half an hour off, and took our mandatory salt tablets. Both of us loved it - mainly because we could hand over a nice fistful of money, to our mother every week. She didn't want it, but we made her take it. The machines we worked on dated from the 30's, and were way past their retirement age. I can still easily recall the smells of the exotic lubricants that were used, and we smelled like graphite no matter how well we washed. Now that factory is long gone, and largely forgotten.

My brother and I often talk about that time, and how much we enjoyed it.

There's only one regret - we didn't take any photographs, because we didn't know that place was going to disappear and we were just kids having a good time. There's nothing on the internet that shows what that place was like when we worked there.

The main reason that I think that photography is a truly important activity, is that it records history without twisting it. You get to see the truth about how things really were. Even better, you get to see sometimes how it was for you, when you were there.

Places and events are preserved, potentially, forever.

You keep taking your amazing photographs - they have a value that goes far beyond any monetary sum.

All the best,

Colin
 
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