Vanishing Point is a record of 50 years of photography by David Plowden, with a lengthy introduction to Plowden's life and work by Steve Edwards, and a very interesting postscript by Plowden.
The book is divided into sections by subject matter: trains, bridges, boats, industry, small towns, open spaces. These are not 'beautiful' photographs: they are beautifully composed and shot, but their subject matter is industrial America in its heyday and in its decline. There are many striking, disturbing images. One is a shot of the Statue of Liberty through power lines and industrial rubbish in New Jersey. It is an image that can be taken many ways, I suppose, but to me it epitomizes the sharp divide between the idealized America of the right-wing punditry and 5th grade history books on the one hand, and the actual America on the other: that mixture of idealism and provincialism, industry and sloth, far-sightedness and short-sightedness.
Seeing the photos from the 60s and 70s reminded me that although we had more and better jobs then, we were not living in paradise. Decay had set in, and the days of American industrial domination were numbered. It was also a reminder that whatever wealth 'we' had and have, the wealth was distributed sharply upward, with vast swaths of America living as an underclass.
Of course, I don't think that Plowden had any such ideas in mind as he made these photographs.
Plowden mostly used a square format Hasselblad camera. He notes in his afterward that good quality film became harder and harder to find in the past 20 years. He has thousands of sheets frozen, against the day when film is no longer available - more than he will ever use in his lifetime.
He spent several months in 2006 learning Photoshop.
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