DANIEL
This week found me finally back in the darkroom. After an initial altercation with an ancient mystery roll of film that took me 20 minutes to screw into the spool for developing, I made my move to the chemicals. It was not like riding a bicycle. I had forgotten everything. I'm still not sure what's on that roll because it's so tantalizingly dark--accidentally exposed or overdeveloped? That will be the project for next week's session. I did however return to a series that I shot a couple of years ago when Temple University had embarked upon another one of those forcible relocations of a longstanding neighborhood that make institutions of so-called higher learning such bad neighbors. I'd passed by this little collection of homes many times and always found it a reassuring contrast to the university's architectural aspirations. What it tears down defines its personality as much as what it thrusts into being; probably a general rule for human undertakings. Though I was of course saddened to see this community obliterated, there was nothing I could do except indulge my fascination with modern ruins and abandoned spaces. I can't say that the scanning did these photos any favors. But it did help me reconsider how I'd originally printed them. In any event, this little series might be entitled shadows of destruction or the destruction of shadows... or something less melodramatic.