I don’t update the site all that often, and I add photos of abandoned houses even less often. However, I do still have quite a few that have never seen the light of day. It’ll take awhile, but I plan to keep adding them as I get them ready. Here is the latest:
When I photographed this house I had nice conversation with a gentleman from the neighborhood. There was little reminiscing, and a little bit about the house itself. It had been abandoned for awhile, but the neighbors maintained the yard, and someone had planted a garden in the empty lot next door.
Today I was happy to be able to donate $250 to the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, and $100 to Gleaners Community Food Bank. Both charities deal with feeding the hungry…generally people who can’t afford to feed their families. With the holiday season, and winter coming up, I thought it was a good time to donate charities dealing with feeding the needy.
My next donations will likely be to charities that deal with housing the homeless. Winter in Detroit is particularly rough on the homeless. Winter in Detroit tends to be pretty brutal, with cold temperatures, rain, and snow.
I’ve recently come across some newer films about Detroit. They both seem to have a similar take. That is they show Detroit as a fairly depressed place, they also show Detroit as a city of opportunity. Both angles are correct, of course. It all depends on your point of view. Perhaps it’s a great big, blank slate for a 22 year old creative looking for an inexpensive place to try out your dreams, but it’s possibly the worst place to be if you’re a 50 year old laid off auto worker.
Street Fighting Man
This documentary looks intriguing, and like Detroit itself, seems utterly depressing, and a little bit inspiring at the same time. Some are trying to tear the place down, while others work to lift it back up. All are simply trying to make it.
Both add to a growing list of films about Detroit. Here are just a few of them:
The Farmer and the Philosopher
Occasionally I get questions about what exactly an ‘edition of 10’ actually means. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, an edition is the number of prints that will be made from each negative. Editions are often reproductions of the original. Of course, in photography, the original would be the negative, plate, transparency, or raw digital file, meaning that the original is never sold, and everyone that is sold is a reproduction. In this case almost all of the originals would be negatives (a few would be transparencies, and one is a raw digital file). At the size of 5×5 inches, I will only sell a maximum of 10 reproductions (prints) of each image. Once I sell 10, the image is sold out in the 5×5 inch size.
I do sell larger sizes of all the prints, and in many cases I’ve sold prints as large as 24×24 inches. Any size that I sell is limited to 10 prints, before that edition is sold out. Why do I do that? The first reason is people like it. It limits the number of prints of any one image that is out there to 10, so unlike a mass produced poster, the prints are a little more unique. The second reason is that I don’t want to find myself printing the same images over and over. I need a bit of variety.
So far, eleven images are sold out in the 5×5 inch size. They are:
I am in the tabloids…and it’s not for photos of me in an embarrassing situation in Vegas, so I think it’s a good thing. It’s actually very nice. I’m happy to be in such a well read publication. I almost missed the opportunity too.
When my site, 100 Abandoned Houses went done a couple of months ago, I transferred the site to a different host. It was a late night affair…of course, and I did not reconfigure the email. I tested it, but the DNS propagation must not have finished, because my test worked. I never got another email to my address on the site after that.
While that should have been a red flag, I was busy, and didn’t think much of it. When I figured it out the other day, I stumbled across several hundred emails I hadn’t known existed (If you were one of those who emailed me there, I’ll be getting back to you shortly). There was a message from The Daily Mail, asking if it would be alright to feature my project, 100 Abandoned Houses on their site. Fortunately they were still interested. Now my project is featured on The Daily Mail
I thought it was about time to provide an update on the donations I’ve made so far from print sales on this site. As of today, I’ve made the following donations:
There is a bit more to donate, but I haven’t settled on where. I have a few email suggestions that I’ll be looking into shortly. If anyone has any other suggestions for Detroit charities, please send them my way. I’m happy to evaluate any, and all, suggestions.
Thanks to all who have purchased prints. It’s been a very satisfying project, and giving a little something back to Detroit makes it that much better.
It’s up now…likely with some problems. If you encounter any, feel free to comment or send me an email. I’d like to know about any lingering issues, other than the obvious one, which is that some content simply doesn’t exist right now. I am still working on it. I was hosting with godaddy…I know, I know… I have another host, and was able to move most of the site over, and get it back up and running, for the most part.