another photo book

[JoeFriday]

"Passing Gas" by Gary Gladstone

(the title has no relation to anything here)

I found it in the library the other day and picked it up.. the photographer decides he needs to get out of his professional photo rut and decides to drive to small towns across the United States that have odd names (such as the town named "Odd").. once he gets there, he finds a person to photograph in a way to represent the town's unusual moniker

it's a light-hearted coffee table book.. the photos range from good to crappy.. but overall it gave me some inspiration for new photo projects of my own

if you see a copy, flip through it.. you could probably read the whole thing in less than 2 hours, but some of the stories of the locals or the journey itself are worth the time

 

[FrankS]

Doing a project like that would be a dream come true for me. Just travel'n and photograph'n.

 

[Pherdinand]

indeed, people canbe of such a large variety, it's always interesting to meet new folks at new places and portray them (i especially say portray not photograph because portraying them can include a short story about them, which makes the whole project more fun).

 

[RJBender]

Gladstone and Proulx followed a golden rule to make sure they made the most of their time: drive in the bad light, shoot in the good light. Thus, invariably their images were made in the sweet light of early morning or near day’s end. Their equipment included three Nikon FMs with lenses ranging from 15mm to 300mm, Norman 200C battery-powered strobes, umbrellas, reflectors, Gitzo tripods, stands, CB radio, red Day-Glo road cones and safety vests for shooting on roadsides, a small ladder, a laptop computer and other bits and pieces, and lots of Kodak E100 film. From initial research through final execution, this was a well-planned campaign.

http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/archives/Dec03/passinggas.tml

It looks like he used a 20mm or 24mm Nikkor for most of his photos.

R.J.

 

[JoeFriday]

yeah.. he mentions in several places that he used his 20 to get more environment into the shot.. he has some great compositions, but I'm not impressed with the image quality of many of the shots.. it might be an issue with the scanning/printing.. but I also notice several of his shots have some lens flare that detracts from the images

unfortunately, given that it was more of a personal project than an economic venture.. and the short time constraints each photo op was allowed, he had limited choices among the final prints.. still, there are a few shots that would get some praise if they were in our gallery

 

[hugivza]

Several years ago I read a book on a similar theme called "Blue Highways" by William Somebody or other (Moon I think). He travelled on all of the back roads of the US, ie those roads marked in blue rather than red, and collected memories of the people and the places. A good read.

 

[iDude]

Blimey, that's hilarious. My favourite from the preview is "Bitter End" which actually _is_ a very good photo.
And as Frank said, doing something like this would indeed be a dream come true.

Oh, "Sweetlips" is also pretty good... 😀

 

[gns]

Hugivza,

William Least Heat Moon.
I think Graham Parker also wrote a song called "Blue Highways".

Gary