Ken Light, esteemed social documentary photographer and professor, has told his students on numerous occasions that one effective way to achieve fame as a photographer is to die. Not that he advocates that particular method, per se; he is merely pointing out that photographs become ever more valuable with time and scarcity. Woodman will never create another archival print with her own hand; what existed at the time of her death is all that will ever exist. And what exists of her work is a small, haunting window into her young life from twenty years ago. Fifty or a hundred years from now, her life will have become even more remote, more nostalgic, more clearly of a different era; her clothes and surroundings antiquated; her photographic methods ancient; and her work will take on yet another, more valuable meaning — the photograph as historical object.

It’s no new concept, the artist who becomes famous only after he’s no longer around to know it. Dying truly is a very singular way to stand out from the crowd.

Another way to stand out, says Ken, is to keep on truckin’ and keep on making art for another few decades. Inevitably, your more sensible artistic peers will begin dropping out of the art world, one by one, to make a viable living doing something else, and after a few decades, you’ll find that you’re finally in the top tier of your generation of artists — a bit late in life, unfortunately, to begin collecting a 401(k), but at least the Metropolitan Museum of Art is considering your portfolio, at last! It was all worth it!

Many people do manage to make their livings as professional photographers. Many people do not manage to do so. Very few manage to do it very successfully. I do not know if I can, or will. (Yes, this is my photography website, and yes, I am saying that quite honestly. Some marketing I’m doing, huh?) What I do know is:

I will always make photographs, in one form or another.

I do not do photographic work for no pay.
(For a succinct explanation on why that is so, I recommend Tony Sleep‘s very British response to people who ask to use his photos for free. For a more obscenity-filled explanation, see the inimitable Harlan Ellison, writer and non-asshole.)

Aside from that… I do not yet know. I have not yet met a single professional or mentor who has been able to recommend that, in this day and age of the industry, I attempt to make my sole source of income from photojournalism work. Staff photography positions are few and dear, and freelance photography is difficult to sustain — particularly if supporting a family is part of the plan. Not to mention that I would also love to start saving for a beach house and a helicopter.

Or at least a new lens.

This semester (I’m a student, so my time is measured by semesters, not by months), I’m taking a bunch of photo classes, working a bunch of jobs, freelancing, and spending quite a bit of time on Facebook. Between all of that, plus maintaining a relationship, talking about my feelings, cleaning the bathroom, and watching Battlestar Galactica, I have just about enough time to take photos, but not necessarily to edit or post them. Plus, I recently decided that I’m willing to lay down my life for Occupy Oakland… so there’s that, too.

But enough with excuses. This is going to become an extremely dynamic blog filled with relevant photographic information and arresting imagery. FYI, I’m also going to backdate the post(s) related to the NYC-to-California return trip home so that, you know, it looks like I’ve been updating a lot.

I’m now four days into the photo intensive at Parsons. My hands smell like photo chemicals and my eyes are starting to see shapes in the dark. I carry two cameras with me everywhere I go.

My skin sticks to itself with the humidity. My head is filled with uptown, downtown, east, west. Every day I try to swipe my MetroCard as though I don’t even have to think about it; as though I’m not concerned that I will get trapped and squished in the revolving subway entrance, like in some kind of cartoon. I am apparently the only person in New York who doesn’t have a closet of summery cotton frocks to trot around in. However, I’ve made myself slightly more bona fide by getting a membership at the local video store and being on the verge of getting my first late fee there (for The Business of Being Born… I guess I needed to be in New York to become a fan of Ricki Lake).

I’m also way behind on my road trip chronicles, and will be sorting through my photos and journal notes in the next few days. First up, Detroit…

The one time I do see a Starbucks logo on a highway services sign, I get off at that exit, follow the arrow pointing me into town, and drive down a very nice Main Street twice without ever finding the alleged Starbucks. HAHA, SUCKA, says the state of Pennsylvania.

The state of Pennsylvania is, however, beautiful to drive through on a Sunday morning.

—-
June 26, 2:45pm
New York City, NY

Using my National Geographic road atlas, I navigate my way to the George Washington Bridge leading into New York City. This is the bridge I first heard about when I imagined, eight years ago, driving across San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and heading eastward on Interstate 80 straight across the country to the George Washington.

New York. New York.

I cross over the bridge into Manhattan traffic. Speed limits appear to be optional, as do turn signals and lane markers. In the time it takes me to make my way south to the Manhattan Bridge leading into Brooklyn, I become a New York City driver — and as anyone who is familiar with the concept can tell you, that just means “defending your right as a motorist against pedestrians, bikers, other motorists, traffic lights, and street signs.”

I have driven over 4,000 miles by the time I arrive. One of the first things I encounter is this establishment in Chinatown:

And then I’m across the Manhattan Bridge onto Flatbush Avenue on a brilliant, humid, motion-filled afternoon in Brooklyn. Parking is surprisingly easy. Finding my orientation is not. I wander, disoriented, unwashed, fresh off of the rest of the country, straight into a picnic, champagne, friends, and Prospect Park.

Public art in Detroit.

—-
June 25, 10:52pm
Brady’s Leap Plaza, Mantua, OH

I was going to leave Detroit at noon. Then Shelley and I had a leisurely morning of coffee and porch-sitting, and I revised my departure time to 4pm. We drove some more through Detroit and had a lovely journey through the Eastern Market farmers market. There were hordes of people spending their Saturday morning buying flowering plants, fresh produce, and fresh-off-the-grill BBQ ribs. I was surrounded and enveloped by vibrant, active life.

I ended up leaving at 6:30, in time to drive through most of Ohio in the dark.

So I’m now on the last leg of my journey. I got to say on the phone earlier, to my friend Aman, “I’m so close. I’m only seven or eight hours away. I know that sounds like a lot.”

—-
June 26, 1:37am
Treasure Lake Campgrounds, DuBois, PA

I’m so exhausted that my eyelids hurt, but even at 1:30 in the morning, the security guards in the Treasure Lake security booth dutifully fumble to collect my cash and write me a carbon copy receipt. The security booth smells like baked potato. Usually it would be the Registration Office that does the transaction, but they’re closed for the night. I do get 90 cents off of the regular rate because none of the guards have change (and they all literally dig through their own pockets to check).

For the second time in my life, I sleep in the backseat of my car in a campground in Western Pennsylvania, underneath dripping trees.

My friend Shelley is living in Detroit for the summer. I got into Detroit late on a Thursday night and drove about 15 miles down the six-lane city thoroughfare of Michigan Avenue to Shelley’s place. Michigan Avenue was lined with endless blocks of boarded-up businesses, empty strip joints, car lots with stadium lights blazing and no one inside. The street was vastly empty of cars.

Detroit is a city built on automobile manufacturing, dating back to Henry Ford and his vast empire-to-be of efficient car assembly lines. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler are all headquartered in the Detroit metro area. When the domestic auto industry crisis hit, it hit Detroit hard. Thousands of auto workers found themselves out of jobs, homes were foreclosed, businesses floundered, gilded Art Deco buildings began collapsing, the economy went belly up. Detroit, once a city of over two million, now has a population of about 750,000 people. Those 750,000 people are here still, spread out in pockets in between swaths of empty neighborhoods and gutted, abandoned single family homes.

What might a city look like when, phoenix-like, there are so many ashes to rise from? I’m reminded of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. When the City as an entity no longer cares to tear down the burnt-down shells of houses, its citizens might take it over to do with it as they wish – to draw and paint art all over the interior walls, to salvage building materials to use in a garden or a bonfire, to imagine and build a future community center or gallery. There are public art projects revitalizing former ghettos, urban gardens where empty lots used to be, and a base of activists and community leadership that is astounding. There are so many problems and not enough resources yet. Perhaps almost enough imagination.

—-
June 24, 6:30pm
Michigan Building, Detroit, MI

The old Michigan Theater is housed in what is now known as the Michigan Building in downtown Detroit. From the outside, the Michigan Building is a totally nondescript office building with a dozen floors and a parking garage.

The parking garage, though – the parking garage is the equivalent of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean. The parking garage was once the theater, which was called “a castle of dreams and an ocean of seats” when it opened in 1926. It had soaring columns, tiled marble floors, sweeping staircases leading to a mezzanine, and a carved eight-story ceiling; it was an extravagant movie palace for both the elite and the everyman of the Detroit social scene. In 1976, it was decommissioned and subsequently turned into a private parking structure.

Today, the occupants of the Michigan Building offices park their cars under the faded ceilings and battered columns of the old Michigan Theater.

The theater is one of the best examples of Detroit’s history of repurposing and reassembly. That’s the way it’s always worked throughout the eons of human civilization, right? — a forest becomes an aqueduct becomes a coliseum becomes a church becomes a forest becomes a burial ground becomes a shopping mall, layers upon layers of the history of people. The Michigan Theater is simply an example of that process in fast-forward. When one age falls, a new one steps into the remains of the old.

Since it’s a private parking garage, people aren’t allowed to simply waltz in. But Shelley and I are clearly so enthralled about the ceiling of the fume-filled parking garage, so full of wonder, that one of the parking attendants invites us to come in and look around. We spend more than an hour in that parking garage, wandering the space and craning our necks til the daylight fades.

—-
June 24, 9:30pm
Belle Isle, Detroit, MI

From Belle Isle, an island park in the Detroit River, you can see how close Detroit is to Canada. A mere breath and bridge away. The skyline is reflected in the water. It’s a beautiful city.

—-
June 24, 11:30pm

I’m gripped by a troubling but persistent desire to watch James Cameron’s Titanic and am totally boggled that Shelley doesn’t happen to own a copy of it.

We talk instead about time, and time’s relationship to our human cities. In a thriving urban city, time doesn’t pass the same way it does here in Detroit. As in the case of the Michigan Theater, abandonment speeds up the evolution process. According to Alan Weisman in The World Without Us, if humans were to suddenly disappear off of the face of the planet, our cities would quickly exhibit the passing of our civilization. In two days, New York’s subway tunnels would flood. In three years, buildings in colder climates would begin to crumble.

So there is no one to remember but us, and those who come after us for this little while. Paradoxically, none of this matters in the big scheme of things, which is why it seems to matter a great deal now.