farm/subdivision diptych project

Beautiful, in concept and its execution. I have so many favorites. It becomes evident that you really care about your subjects.
ciao, Nina

Great work! The photo essay was very informing of how things have changed in those last 7 years. The juxtaposition of people and emotions with the landscape works really well.

Wonderful work Scott: funny, insightful, sad, inevitable….some brilliant shots (love the shot of farmer grandmother photographing stone!) and as a series of diptychs just wonderful! :))...for an optimist, you sure have insight into melancholy! :))

thanks for sharing Scott!...

cheers
b

all i can say is, “DAMN!” awesome possum. wow. im smiling. maybe i shouldn’t be….

strong, strong work. with staying power. thanks for spending the time there. both times.

thanks for the comments…now I have to find a book publisher…any ideas?

Amazing work, Scott! I loved your original story on the Cagwins, but this update –with the diptychs– takes it to a whole ‘nother level.

Sadly great…..

Scott, this is an amazing body of work. Great job at your persistence to follow this through… and sharing it with everyone!

Lovely, honest images. I agree with Bob about the grandmother diptych—fantastic. Your project is very different, but it reminds me of Bill Owens work. I wonder if the publisher who did the re-issue of Suburbia might be worth approaching?? They are called Fotofolio.

I really liked your vision in this project. You took a good concept and through your presentation, made it a great one. Nice work man!

Scott, I loved looking at your work – truly memorable images. I could not help but concentrate on the left side of the screen as I have been working on a similar project on 3 dairy farm families in Wisconsin for 5.5 years. The juxtaposition of farm and suburb is brilliant.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for posting the link to your work. Honestly I don’t think I have enjoyed viewing a body of work like this for a long. long time. I totally enjoy the real moments in emotion and light. I especially appreciate the tenacity required in your editing process. It’s clear to me how well integrated and connected you are with your environment. .. I have so many questions , so just a few – In one of the dyptichs I notices a 13 year difference in photos, while the average seemed to be about 7. Do you live in this community? Were you “just” documenting your community and did the project present itself/evolve naturally or is this something that you had set out to do? I especially love the photos of the man playing with the toy tractor in juxtaposition to the young boy drinking from a green glass with the tractor t-shirt… the wife putting/fixing her husbands hat while the mother putting on her daughters.. the tractor birthday cake, the window view.. Really really enjoyable work and images. Thanks so much for sharing.

Try approaching University of Chicago Press.

Scott, just getting caught up.. Congratulations on your POYi award!
http://www.poyi.org/65/NPOY/index.php

Ana, thanks for the kind words. I will try to answer your questions.

In one of the dyptichs I notices a 13 year difference in photos, while the average seemed to be about 7. Do you live in this community?

I live about 15 minutes away from the subdivision. I shot the farm for the first time in May, 1994, and except for a visit now and again, I didn’t seriously start documenting Harlow and Jean Cagwin until 1999. I shot at least once a week until they left the farm in July, 2002.

Were you “just” documenting your community and did the project present itself/evolve naturally or is this something that you had set out to do?

When I got back to shooting the farm in 1999, I started hearing rumblings that the Cagwins were going to eventually sell the farm. At that point I decided to keep shooting until they left. When the Cagwins left in 2002, I told myself that “someday” I would return to the land to document a subdivision family. I put it off and put it off until March 2007 when I showed my farm work to a photo class at a local community college. One of the students in that class was Amanda Grabenhofer, the mom in my subdivision photos. So. after years of saying that I wanted to find a family in the subdivision, a family found me.
The diptych idea came to me about two weeks after I began shooting the Grabenhofers. From that day on, the project has been simple.