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Jon Bakos  Brighton, MA


* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.


About Jon


In making these photographs I was very interested in two things. The stature that the driver’s constantly exhibited and also the constructed space, the truck stop, that envelops them. I identified with these figures as lonely outcasts who love the road and their trade. But, I quickly began to learn that the industry had increasingly become modernized and these people were no longer ‘ruffing it’. I chose to photograph mostly at night to portray the synthetic beauty that these environments inspired in me and also in its inhabitants. It is through these people that we are able to learn a great deal about our history, culture, and society and where it is taking us.


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Jon appears in the following Top 10 lists


'Massachusetts'

'2008'

'Nightfall'


8 reactions displayed


"Very nice. The first photo is very unreal to me. It could be anywhere, twenty years ago, today or in a "Mad Max" type future. Another thought that these provoked was they offer the difference of our modern world with the absence of the natural world. Beyond the blackness there is nature, we just have forgotten to look."

"I'm glad to see the positive response to the photographic excursions of this young man. On his website one can see the entire truckstop series. Also, there Pennsylvania and Oxaca, MEX. The Mex. fotos seemed most abstract as if the photographer was out of place. The PA were interesting. My favorite foto was in the truck stop series of an empty slip, a light shining through a tree. Trucks on either side make a V leadiing to the light. I am pleased by people's response and glad it was positive. Cheers on the career, kid.R."

"Diesel, plastic and florescents...what's missing is the greasy food, loneliness, ridiculous hours (time away from home), the smell of the cab, and the grinding chatter on the CB and the 3 cell phnoes. That's not to say I didn't like these. They are similar to Maplethorpe in that the images are clear yet detatched, not as gritty as the subjects are in life. In doing this, it makes the subject pretty. Good Stuff."

"I can almost smell the stale urine from here."

"very nice. i like the eerie, uneasy feelings these images provoke. they are haunting."

"I saw the photograph of the gas station. It is a great photograph. It gets you thinking. As far as the trucks go, the thing that comes to mind is "One stands alone." Something I might expect for an advertisment. Great photos!!"

"They are such simple pictures, but the night is just SO DARK behind them. I love it."

"It is so interesting that these pictures are coming across now - when it seems that "trucking" as we know it will be changing long-term. I also like the perspective - you have managed to communicate the isolation of trucking, and by implication, of all careers. After all, no matter our "job," we spend most of it in situations like the photo featured today...quietly toiling."


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