Images Of Nebraska


I stumbled across this book a few weeks ago on Amazon and ordered a copy out of curiosity. Nebraska Photographic Documentary Project 1975-1977 was published by the University Of Nebraska Press in conjunction with the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.


The book is best described by its rather wordy title. Two photographers, Robert Starck and Lynn Dance, documented the state of Nebraska in the spirit of photographers like Walker Evans. Their black and white photographs are very straight-forward, a collection of places and people that they encountered throughout the state over the course of the project.

As a whole, the Photographic Documentary Project is an interesting look at the state of Nebraska nearly three and a half decades ago. Many of the photographs may be unremarkable, but that's the nature of this kind of work. I was happy to see a project somewhat similar to my own in print and enjoyed comparing my work with that of these two photographers. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of the images in this collection feel as if they could have been taken just yesterday. As much as parts of Omaha and Lincoln continue to rapidly change and expand, much of the state stays remarkably the same.




I attempted to google both Starck and Dance without much success. If anyone stumbles across this blog that knows more about this book or the photographers behind it, please drop me a line at josephvavak at g mail dot com. I'm curious to know if they continued to produce photographs after finishing this project.

Revisited (Again)


Today was a great day to get out and photograph, the first such day off I've had in quite awhile. There is still a lot of snow on the ground. Along with the gray skies, it really makes the whole countryside seem incredibly bleak and lonesome.

I rephotographed a few places that have now become very familiar, just trying to get exactly what I want while the snow is still around and the mood is right. The image above is one I've taken before but had never quite been happy with. It's a farmstead along old Linwood Road, halfway between Morse Bluff and Linwood in northwest Saunders County.

Three months...


The Hot Shops show is just a little more than three months from now. Everything is coming together nicely thanks to the help of William Hess. I am not sure if I'm more excited for everyone to see the work or to see how it's going to look on display.

I will be offering a print sale in the next few weeks to help pay for the exhibition. The prints will be available at a lower price for a limited time. I'll have more details soon.

Don't forget to become a fan on Facebook. And put Friday night, April 30th on your calendars.

January


Omaha is (was?) starting to thaw out after a rough month or so of consecutive blizzards. There were two snowfalls of over a foot along with numerous smaller storms along with temperatures that bottomed out around fifteen below zero. My day job finds me in the business of selling snow throwers. After five weeks of nonstop phone calls and emergency shipments of product, everything is finally settling down and things are getting back to normal. All in all, they say it may be the worst winter in 60 years. And, unfortunately, it's not over yet.

Above is a photograph of the ten plus foot snow pile that has become a (semi-)permanent resident of our cul-de-sac.