Untitled, Christopher Moss , 2013
Untitled Grid #1, Christopher Moss , 2013
Riverside Factory, Christopher Moss , 2013
Untitled Grid #2 , Christopher Moss , 2013
So the other evening I was debating on which scene's i wanted to photograph, what interested me within them and what direction my night project was going. I realized that the same methods I employed in my altered landscape images held true thus far with my night photographs. This posed somewhat of a dilemma for me. If what I was looking for at night was essentially what I was looking for during the day, whats the point in having 2 projects.....? Why not combine them?
Another issue arose within my deliberations upon location. It's much easier to roam about intuitively during the day looking for altered landscapes within my allotted confines of Southeastern Pennsylvania, not so much at night where it feels somewhat aimless. My current group of night images have been taken fairly close to home, places I see when traveling home from work or to and from friends house's. These locations and their appeal have been somewhat exhausted.
Recently I picked up a book called "Down the Susquehanna to the Chesapeake" by Jack Brubaker looking for historical reference and context to the landscapes I have been photographing. Great book by the way. It got me thinking about the town I grew up in, Marietta, and the surrounding towns that were once booming centers for trade and culture on the east coast and have been forgotten to history.
This sparked an idea that I feel has a lot of potential and is divergent from the night and day landscapes of my Altered Landscapes project. I thought about photographing exclusively in black and white and focusing specifically on small towns along the Susquehanna river at night. These places lend themselves to the historical aesthetic of black and white images. These towns and their infrastructure hark back to industrial times as though you have stepped into a time warp. There is a definite sense of nostalgia for me as well when I am walking the streets at night. I feel that each towns character becomes pronounced and there is a certain solitude and historical heritage that emerges from the shadow of night.
I am not sure what directions these images will take me. I'm not sure if stand alone images will speak as well as the presence of multiple images in grids. Whether I should incorporate the towns people or strictly their empty streets and industry. Either way it feels good to find a thread that I can follow into another adventure and visual experience. Shown above are images from Wrightsville between the hours of 11:30 and 1:30 on a Wednesday night. I will definitely return to this town as well as other locations as I make my way up the Susquehanna. I'm excited and curious as to what comes of this new project......
