American Beauty. The Opulent Pre-Depression Architecture of Detroit

Even as a child, I was drawn to dark stories. I was fascinated by tragedies and dark comedies – tinged with the bitterness of adult experience.  With photography as my chosen medium, the abandoned and disappearing architecture of early twentieth-century Detroit offered a story with many layers of complexity and irony. I’ve always been drawn to handcrafted equipment made of brass, steel, and hand polished glass. For most architectural projects, I use a large format camera and digital back from Denmark, paired with German Schneider lenses, an architectural camera capable of controlling perspective and able to create prints of a monumental scale.  It is  the fine details within the images that tell the story of craftsmanship.  The composition and the large size of the prints give the viewer the experience of being within grand structural spaces.  By shooting elevations and avoiding complex camera angles I attempt to remove the camera from the viewer experience. Passion exists in this once great city because of the battles the people are fighting.  The Detroit series offered me a chance for a narrative that I felt needed to be told and to create images with the potential to effect change.