scott kirkpatrick
Member
A recent series of articles on Mike Johnson's blog, http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/
(can't figure out how to link to the exact articles, but look at the archives for August 20, 21, and 25) on what to photograph at hot rod shows and vernacular architecture has got me puzzled. The articles talked about what to notice at such shows (folding seats and foam beer can holders), what to shoot (details -- it's too crowded for anything else to work), and concluded that this is a fairly unsatisfactory photographic experience.
Carl Weese put the last nail in the coffin, saying that while he loved to shoot vernacular architecture (country churches and drive-in theaters, for examples), hot rods, well-designed gardens, and new buildings were just too finished to be interesting to him.
Now I get a kick out of exploring the nuances of vernacular architecture, too. After studying Weese's drive-ins -- he's really got a Jones for them, three web portfolios -- I took a field trip to the ruins of the one drive-in that I know of in Israel and found, cast in concrete and rusty steel, our native building materials, a perfect replica of the wooden, white-painted ticket booth entry gate that you would expect to find anywhere in New England. And I am more inspired by Alain Briot's Rock Art pictures, made by unknown native americans an unknown time ago, than by his shafts of light in Antelope Canyon. But where does vernacular architecture stop? And what comes next?
The Bechers in their teaching program in Duesseldorf, insisted that every student master the collection of a vernacular form. Andreas Gursky took this to its limits by doing a project on Pfoertner ("gate-keepers" or security guards), who sit at night, in pairs so that they can keep an eye on each other, at the front desks of office buildings. See Figs 21-24 in his MOMA book.
So why aren't hot rods a vernacular architecture? They are certainly not the products of an MFA program. Has anyone managed to cut through the circus aspects and bring out this side of them (recently or historically)?
scott
(can't figure out how to link to the exact articles, but look at the archives for August 20, 21, and 25) on what to photograph at hot rod shows and vernacular architecture has got me puzzled. The articles talked about what to notice at such shows (folding seats and foam beer can holders), what to shoot (details -- it's too crowded for anything else to work), and concluded that this is a fairly unsatisfactory photographic experience.
Carl Weese put the last nail in the coffin, saying that while he loved to shoot vernacular architecture (country churches and drive-in theaters, for examples), hot rods, well-designed gardens, and new buildings were just too finished to be interesting to him.
Now I get a kick out of exploring the nuances of vernacular architecture, too. After studying Weese's drive-ins -- he's really got a Jones for them, three web portfolios -- I took a field trip to the ruins of the one drive-in that I know of in Israel and found, cast in concrete and rusty steel, our native building materials, a perfect replica of the wooden, white-painted ticket booth entry gate that you would expect to find anywhere in New England. And I am more inspired by Alain Briot's Rock Art pictures, made by unknown native americans an unknown time ago, than by his shafts of light in Antelope Canyon. But where does vernacular architecture stop? And what comes next?
The Bechers in their teaching program in Duesseldorf, insisted that every student master the collection of a vernacular form. Andreas Gursky took this to its limits by doing a project on Pfoertner ("gate-keepers" or security guards), who sit at night, in pairs so that they can keep an eye on each other, at the front desks of office buildings. See Figs 21-24 in his MOMA book.
So why aren't hot rods a vernacular architecture? They are certainly not the products of an MFA program. Has anyone managed to cut through the circus aspects and bring out this side of them (recently or historically)?
scott