October 21, 2004...
I
hadn't really planned on shooting a photo documentary then. As luck would have
it, my schedule opened up and allowed me the luxury of 4 hours on this
particular Thursday morning, so I decided to take advantage of it. Wandering
around the east-side of Detroit, I opted to shoot what I see daily as a
commercial photographer (the state of the city, the widespread blight, my
personal experiences) and hope something might come of my time spent. And in February 2005, I opened a photo documentary
not-so-surprisingly titled “4 hours in
What I
didn't expect at the time... was so much interest, especially from the media. The
Detroit Free Press & News, The Daily Tribune, Real Detroit Weekly, etc., all ran
significant articles on the series... and hopefully... started a paradigmatic
shift regarding the city's perception and abilities.
My intention then was to simply present an experienced eye's view of the city, a mostly random journey that quite literally took 4 hours from start to finish, with the faint hope that at least some dialog might be sparked on the issues of blight, government neglect and the city's perception by outsiders. Some areas I had hoped would receive much needed attention as a result. Some... I never expected would.
“4
hours in Detroit”
Octane Photographic Studio/Gallery
w w w . o c t a n e p h o t o g r a p h i c . c o m
February 5 through
Artist’s Reception: Saturday, February 2005 -
[read
more about “4 hours in Detroit” here -
documentary credits here]
A slow and steady crowd filtered through the Octane Photographic gallery space the duration of the exhibition. As a matter of fact, during the opening reception a number of patrons informed me that the riverside trailer park (image upper right) I had shot months earlier was completely razed within weeks of press publication. My initial thoughts were... "hmmm, perhaps I should do this sort of thing more often".
It wasn't until January 5, 2006 (coincidently a Thursday) that I was afforded another "4 hours" to have a second look. And it began at 9:30am.