* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.
Over the past year I have combed the streets looking for convenience stores with common architectural details. This project is a collection of images that I made and produced in a limited number in conjunction with 20″x30″ prints all taken in Miami, FL in 2004. This project on the convenience store is concerned with the consumer culture of immediacy, 24-hour availability, information overload, and the loss of local identity. The images were made after midnight and photographed with a 4″x5″ view camera in a straight-on objective style. I was influenced in equal parts by the German photographic team of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s straight shoots of industrial landscapes and Ed Ruscha’s 1963 book Twenty Six Gasoline Stations. By shooting these stores in the same straight ahead angle it highlights the differences in each store’s product display and unique advertisements. I use a view camera because it provides ultra sharp detail and helps to create a window into each scene. By using a large format camera the scene contains vastly more detail than the human eye can digest at once. Thus, it is the ideal way to document the information overload of the Miami’Dade County landscape.
