Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Slide Show at msn.com

The Owen Drive-in Theater, Seymour, Missouri

Over at msn.com they've put up a slideshow drawn from my American Drive-in Theater project. Some of the pictures have appeared here, but some others will be unfamiliar even to regular WP visitors.

12 comments:

John said...

Carl
You should have gotten the guys in the coupe to drive into the theater and pose for a picture! ;-)

Carl Weese said...

John, they weren't gathering any moss...I was lucky to see them in time to frame up a shot and let them roll into it.

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, Carl! That project really deserves popularity.

Markus said...

Congratulations, Carl! That project really deserves popularity!

Carl Weese said...

Thanks, Markus. I hope this gives the project some extra visibility as I get closer to the selection and design process for a book.

Anonymous said...

i love that car.

Carl Weese said...

hophotos--I couldn't have asked for a more perfect car to come into view. It's quite unusual to have a theater screen so clearly visible from a highway, so I'd found a spot on a service road where I could show that relationship. I made several shots waiting for moments when no cars were visible, just the concrete strips of the divided highway, then spotted this one coming along.

John Sarsgard said...

Lovely. And many not seen online before. Keep talking about the book as the journey to it proceeds. Are these from scans or dig captures?

Carl Weese said...

John, it's a mixed bag of 8x10, 7x17, and digital capture. An editor at msn made the selections: he seems to have leaned heavily toward shots where cars are prominent. Makes sense since they put it in the "auto" subject area, but it's quite different from what I would select as the top thirty.

The picks were drawn from the "107 Drive-ins" gallery of last year's work, and this gallery of earlier work:

http://www.carlweese.com/DIwID/index.htm

Scott Kirkpatrick said...

If the MSN editor is thinking like me, he's got that OW Link picture in the back of his head, with the message that drive-in screens, cars, and trains (today, highways) make up a complete universe. Hence the need for cars (and people in them) in the pictures he selected, which reinforces your feeling that these DIs are living, not dead artifacts.

scott

John said...

Carl:
I was just jerking your chain! But reading all the comments it's generated. . .maybe you do need to do some drive-in theater shots with cars in the pictures? The pictures seem so empty and "by-gone" without cars. ;-)

Carl Weese said...

John,

In the project as a whole and more so in the 30 selections the msn editor made, there are lots of shots with cars/people included, but that's not the core theme of the project. The core is the relationship of the theater structures to the regional landscape across America. Also, the only time there are cars is late evening, waiting for the show to begin, and many/most theaters only run three/four days a week, only part of the year. Some of my absolute favorites are these dusk shots with cars and activity.

One of the things I find fascinating is that most theaters are 'active' for perhaps 20 hours a week, 30 weeks a year. The rest of the time these strange, wonderful structures just sit there, resonating with the landscape. That's the core of the project. Also, flea markets/swap meets are now common at surviving theaters, because they provide a second income stream, and I've included quite a bit of coverage of these in last year's work on the project.