Friday, February 25, 2011

Motels (III) The Most Haunted Places in America

Holbrook, AZ
Holbrook, AZ (Wigwam Motel II)

Motel, KY
Knob Hill, KY

Motel
Conway, TX

Little Rock, AR
Little Rock, AR

This is a selection of images from my on-going series about Motels (The Most Haunted Places in America).

When I'm traveling I like staying in cheap motels. There's something about them which captures my imagination. I love the atmosphere, the dated and crumbling decor, the buzzing neon signs, the musty smell of the rooms and the people that use them. I love to listen to the stories of those that work in the office. I love the plastic dusty flower displays, stale coffee, the old TV's and faded pictures hanging on the walls. I love the cracked cement parking lots, the broken coke machines and the Bible in the bedside draw with the broken back. What I love most of all are the dreams I have in the bumpy uncomfortable beds after a day of driving. Laying in the darkness listening to the trucks thundering past on the road outside I think about all the people who have stayed in the very room I am in. I imagine all the things that could have possibly happened and feel the fleeting ghosts of their presence echo around me. In the darkness I contemplate my own flickering sepia place in it's transitory history. For me they are the most haunting and haunted places in America.

Please follow these links to see more images from this series:

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Wemego, KS. The Oz Museum (behind the curtain)

Wemego, KS


Wemego, KS


Wemego, KS


Wemego, KS


For a while now I have had a fascination with internal and artificial landscapes. It is a theme which has threaded it's way through much of the work I have made so far in the USA and whenever I am lucky enough to see and be in one, I always feel strongly compelled to photograph them.

I am interested in the illusion and the fantasy these places attempt to create and sometimes (in terms of my Cage series) their grim reality too. I love the theatre and suspension of disbelief which goes with standing in a themed museum for example. I always find that these artificial landscapes jar heavily with my own dreams, ideals and experiences and they are always, ultimately, strange, floored and sadly human.

These artificial and internal landscapes often force me to consider my own real life experience of landscapes which I have stood or lived in and questions what I have done with them myself, psychically. I think we are all filled with a lifetime - a history of landscapes, which have themselves, in turn, become a part of who we are as individuals. They become part of our own mental geography, full of archetypes, symbols and markers - integrating themselves inside, with special and personal significance. I always find it interesting and amazing, for example, when a landscape I have recently (or not recently) experienced suddenly becomes the location of a dream I have had. Why has this particular landscape or place been chosen to play out the drama of this dreams events at this time? It is something I find endlessly fascinating..
These photographs were made last weekend in Wemego, Kansas at the excellent and well worth visiting 'Wizard of OZ' museum and marked my three year anniversary since moving to the United States.
Here is what their website says about it:

"What words could be more appropriate when describing the dream of a small community that literally built a museum out of a rainbow's notion? It took the brains of a small group of leaders, the heart for what L. Frank Baum began in 1900 as a simple children's book and the courage to take on the task of constructing a home for over 2,000 artifacts dating from 1900 to today.

The OZ museum was built with a major grant from the State of Kansas and the generosity of the people of this small community, who also provided thousands of hours of volunteer time. The museum houses more than just memorabilia from the famous 1939 MGM musical starring Judy Garland! It encompasses earlier silent films, one of which starred none other than Oliver Hardy (Laurel and Hardy fame) as the Tin Man as well as "The Wiz" starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson.

The OZ Museum offers everything imaginable from the earliest Baum books and OZ Parker Brothers board games to today's collectibles that can be purchased in Auntie Em's Gift Shop. The OZ Museum is dedicated to ALL things OZ. It is a treasure trove of delight and wonder and thrills visitors young and "young at heart."

Of course I did make lots of photographs of the actual exhibits and artifacts on display and I may post some of them here at a later date.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Aubade Magazine Issue 1


Great news today. Just heard I have two photographs published in issue 1 of Aubade Magazine. I have just seen the preview and it looks wonderful. I am in great company there too with some really talented photographers, writers, poets and artists. Many thanks to the Editor and designer Christopher C Turner for his hard work and dedication to what looks like a fabulous new publication.

Mechanic

"Aubade Magazine is for those whose work-a-day lives seem to throb with infinity. Photography, Poetry, Prose, Art, Drawing, Pen Portrait. Sublime."

Follow this link to see a preview or order a copy: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/Issue/143882