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is an occasional journal of Oregon, from arts and books to public policy & transportation.
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A journal about photography, roadtrips, trains and life, with occasional detours into movies, baseball, music, family and more.
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Good photos usually have good stories to go with them.... The goal of The Photographers' Railroad Page is to provide an outlet for top quality photographs and their story.
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Living in Vancouver; working in Portland. I have some thoughts.
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...life and experiences in Texas and the Southwest. Recurring themes: Photography, railroads, fading ads / ghost signs, fallen-flag railroad logos, boxcars, bicycling, Texas music, pop culture, sports, road trips, literature, kids and family.
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Friday, January 25, 2008
American Graffiti
Labels: Art, Civics, Photography, Portland, Site News
2: Inside and Out
Graffiti seems to trouble some photographers, especially railfan photographers. The "big question" seems to be if its legitimate art, and most seem to say no. Yet some photographers can't help but take pictures of it. How many photographers of railroad subjects wouldn't recognize the cigar-smoking mug of the Colossoss of Roads? (Sidenote, he reminds me a bit of General Alcazar in TinTin). Jeff Bass, amongst others, has made many compelling "captures" (as he likes to say) of graffiti, images I can't help but admire.
Truth be told, graffiti is there. It's part of the real world we live in. To pretend that freight cars in LA ought to be shiny and sparkle is to live in a fantasy land inside our heads, not in reality. There is at least a little bit of photojournalism in railroad photography, isn't there?
Yet it does tear at me. I'm a big believer in order. Which isn't to say my desk doesn't look like a war zone. It's more that I feel that we need more respect in the world, not less. Humor is fine, farce is fine, sarcasm is fine. We're adults, we should be tough enough to stand that. But graffiti... isn't that basically vandalism?
And so I'm stuck taking photos of things I don't approve of.
In 2006 I took a traditional photography course at a community college, in order to get some training in basic darkroom technique. (I'm a wannabe dinosaur, forgive me my strange habits). For my finals project, I concentrated on railroad graffiti. It was on my mind a lot as I traded emails with Jeff and with my friend Scott Lothes on the subject, trying to make sense of it all. In the end, the correspondence and the project ended up merging late last year.
At the end of the project, my attitude is still ambiguous. I feel that if I'm really trying to do something meaningful about understanding the railroad landscape, I can't ignore graffiti. Yet in a way it's a glorification of it to photograph it. I'm still searching for an answer. Perhaps I will never find it.
Check out the essay here and see if you can find any answers of your own.
Thanks to Jeff and Scott for helping out with this project, and thanks to Martin Burwash for his candid critique.
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