Waycross Georgia – Lot for Rent

Now and then you see a gallery call for artwork and it triggers some memories. In this case, a call for Southern Landscapes by South x Southeast took me back to the small city of Waycross Georgia in 2009. This was a family visit to my daughter’s in-laws who have a ton of relatives in this area. And Waycross is within that whole Southern region, so this photograph qualifies as a potential submission.

One of my memories of the day was walking around this area and observing this plot of land that had a pretty intimidating barbed wire fencing that encompassed it with the For Rent sign. Mind you, there was a lot of open land all around this plot that was not fenced in. Additionally, it appeared that the area within the fencing was not being cared for and looking a bit on the wild side. Then there was this huge concrete driveway off the street that essentially went up to the sidewalk and stopped. Very strange indeed. In the short time I had there, I could not figure out what was going on so my instinctive reaction was to photograph it.

One idea is how to reinterpret this photograph into something that is a bit strange and mysterious, similar to how strange this plot of land appeared to me at the time. In 2009 I was more interested in a ‘straight’ documentary style that is formally composed, aka Bernd and Hilla Becher, photograph above. Using my concept of experimental/play, below, is a post-visualization with a bit of manipulation of a southern urban landscape that might be just a little bit creepy. Not exactly an abstract image, but not a straight rendering either. Interesting tangental thought for the day, as I am not sure that this will be a submission image, but it was interesting thinking back to how weird and out of place this location seemed at the time.

What do you think?

Cheers,

Doug

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Artwork: Waycross Georgia, For Rent, copyright Douglas Stockdale 2009

Exhibitions and workshops;

February 20th – March 20th 2021; Photographs’s Eye gallery, Escondido, CA, a solo exhibition of my Memory Pods series (lens-based photography). Artist reception February 20th, 3-7pm and due to pandemic restrictions, you will need to sign up for the reception (only small groups allowed in the gallery at any one time).  Artist talk, virtual on Zoom, February 25th, 5:30 – 7:00 pm (PST), sign-up here.

March 13-14, 20-21, 2021; Developing Your Creative Photo Book, a workshop that I am leading again in collaboration with Los Angeles Center of Photography (LACP). Workshop dates are March 13 – 14th, and March 20-21st from 9am – noon PST. Four days, two consecutive weekends, a virtual workshop on Zoom, with time between sessions to develop your book dummy. Sign-up here.