rumorsaboutlightning:

“Untitled #2312-a, 1999”

http://www.ahornmagazine.com/issue_6/interview_hido/interview_hido.html

The image “Untitled #2312-a, 1999” from the series Houses at Night is one of the few images without a visible illumination coming from the house. A beam of light cuts the front of the house but no light comes from the inside. In every house you have photographed the human presence is implied. The quality of the light is also the quality of the their presence. Thanks to this perception, you are able to establish a relationship between the viewer and the image, as a personal relationship. Could you explain something more about this particular choice? How important is it for your work to show inhabited houses with human beings’ presence instead of empty houses?

“You are very perceptive.
Yes, that is the only house at night that does not have a light on the window.
I chose that particular one because it was actually a place that a lot of my ideas about home and loss and longing came to fruition.

That photograph is the only exterior photograph that is taken of a home that is been abandoned. It was taken in the Love Canal, New York.

I used to live in Boston when I went to the Boston Museum school and I would drive from there to Ohio for holidays and visits to my parent’s house.
I had always heard of that neighborhood and so I decided to get off the turnpike and go find it one day.

What I found was really remarkable to me as it was a neighborhood that had simply been walked away from my many of its inhabitants.

Not all of them. But most of them.

I find that house I shot to be particularly lonely and it was shot on a Blue Moon in the fall that can be seen behind the clouds and that’s where a lot of the light comes from.

That neighborhood was so spooky to me I can’t really even explain what it was like to stand there. You felt like you were being watched. But there was no one there except for just a few homes where people were holdouts.”

This neighborhood is just a half mile away from my home. Dylan and I went to see Todd Hido speak at RIT a few years ago while we were still in college, this is where I first learned one of his images was from Love Canal. I was facinated by his choice, I went to speak with him after his lecture was over and I remember the look at his face when I told him my connection to this place. We had a connection for a moment, incredible. I felt like he wanted to talk about this unique space a bit more, but there were a line of students behind me and we never got the chance. Who knows, maybe he thought I was one of the freaks that stayed behind. I have been looking for this particular image for a few years but couldn’t track it down. Thank YOU, Dylan. 

(Source: brekninger)

Fenbred right outside the Mallard Window. Xanterra spared no expense with our living situation. Only half the building was condemned and there were a hand full of rooms the mice hadn’t gotten too. The mold in the walls probably killed them before they got far. Thankfully one of the most beautiful places on earth was right outside our door and when we weren’t working, or stuck inside because of insane weather, we found ourselves out in the thick of it. 

http://soundcloud.com/fenbred

I highly recommend you follow this link to Ben’s soundcloud page and give his tunes a whirl. You can read an interview with Fenbred by English based Wonky Carton. Live drums, football and the city of no illusions. It’s pretty great to see someone giving this chap’s music a chance.

http://wonkycarton.tumblr.com/post/22791815208/live-drums-football-and-the-city-of-no-illusions

The employee parking lots was like a super sized bag of halloween candy. You could get a tootsie roll, some m&ms, an Oregon, some candy corn you’d never eat, a few Michigans and a couple burnt Arizonas.  

Lodge poles! Everywhere you went in the park there were lodge pole pines standing tall or toppled over. There were even huge stretches that looked like burnt toothpicks, charred from the wildfires of 1988 that effected 36% of the park.  

Velero, AMPM, Sonoco, Hess, Shell, BP, Chevron, Mobil…whatever it is, they hold nothing to Flying J Truck Stops. Holy shit, everything you need from LED lights, to Wolf t-shirts, burritos, coffee, knives and even a shower if you’re lucky. After running on E for 30 min this place looks like an oasis in the desert. 

It’s like being stuck in a time warp with an infinite green and blue landscape that stretches to the horizon on either side of you. Flat for hours and hours until you cross another nameless river then, “wait! That must have been the Missouri, look at these fucking hills!” A little celebration then back at it for a tad longer until you enter the Cathedral like spires of Badlands and the tiny flat towns that surround it. 

We left the East Coast with the storms and middle America greeted us with the sun as we crossed the Mississippi. The Missouri was next, seven hours east with Interior and Badlands just a few hours past that. 

Mr Muuuuurty took us in for the night and showed us around the city the next day. Deep dish, records, buses, Calumet, and Columbia! 

At this point the bag we strapped to Ben’s car had caused major leakage/flooding all over ourselves and our possessions. We had cups set up to catch water as if a pipe broke in the kitchen and we were waiting for the plumber. 

We encountered a wild storm that was headed towards our past, an omen perhaps? I never really made that connection until now. Spirits were high, gas prices were dropping and it really felt like we were doing something. 

I had a couple rolls of Kodak EliteChrome developed recently and wham! there I was again driving out to Yellowstone with Ben. Through the rain to Chicago then across the vast flat lands of Iowa and South Dakota where I wasted about a dozen frames on the endless green fields and massive skies. We finally arrive at the park and begin our short stint in the ‘wilderness’ full of parking lots, meal plans, twisting roads, lodge pole pines, and dorm life. 

I’m guessing this is in Kansas. If that’s the case, we had been on the road since about 11am that day after waking up in my Civic under a comforter in a truckstop parking lot. We parked at 5am expecting to sleep for only a few hours before we hit the road again to catch up on time we lost but apparently our bodies had other plans. We woke up around lunch time to families and truckers walking past our car on a freezing, overcast afternoon. My comforter kept us warm, I think it was about 5 degrees that day. 

What is the feeling when you’re driving away from people, and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it’s the too huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-by. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.

          Jack Kerouac

I got a slew of tattoos before I left Niagara Falls since I knew I wouldn’t have extra cash for a while. Here you can see Jeffro hooking me up with a great Bison tattoo before leaving for Yellowstone. It’s impossible to find a more stoic and reverend animal on our continent. They are a source of inspiration that reminds me of the most amazing times in my life which helps through the most difficult. I couldn’t think of a better person to apply this to my skin. 

John Hogan tattooing another artist at Davie Mac’s Rock Solid Tattoos in Niagara Falls, NY. Kyle had the line work to this shark for quite some time so John finished it up for him then added the waves and the cherry bossom.