As a person who has lived in many towns, in many states; always in the public eye, I’ve had to devise a plan for quick simulation. One of the tools I’ve made use of in this process is a city’s oldest cemetery. I have found a correlation between the surnames on the grandest monuments in a city’s oldest cemetery and the signs in front of the law offices, doctor’s offices and other businesses.
My last two images, bLoOm and oN tHE squARe are connected to this image. All three images were shot with old film, none of them were cropped and only a minuscule tweak was made in Photoshop.
The quote used with bLoOm is ironic because “she” is no longer there when the flowers come to comfort her. “She” is in the cemetery and the house was abandoned when I captured the photograph. The photograph posted oN tHE squARe would still look the same today except the cafe is closed. The flowers surrounding the house are within walking distance of the cafe.
Purchasing this home was cost prohibitive for many people for several years for a variety of reasons, but one of the major factors is that it had no central heat and cooling system. This image shows a coal chute, where in times past, a delivery of coal was made and someone would shovel the coal directly into the basement. A coal furnace would heat the home with what is commonly called “gravity heat”; meaning there was no duct work, but heat would rise from the basement through large vents cut in the basement ceiling connecting to the main floor.
However, Arkansas is a warmly, tropical climate and so cooling a house is a priority and requires duct work and a central cooling system, which brings me to the old money. The purchase price of the house was very low, but to bring the house up to state code and back to a comfortable living condition was much more than the purchase price. So, it was zoned commercial and purchased by a group of attorneys with the same surnames graven on some of the grandest monuments in the city’s oldest cemetery.
I don’t normally share so much background about my photographs so I’ve broken my own rules for living:
- Don’t tell everything you know
(#film)