In May, 2000, I moved to Jamestown with my wife Stephanie. The architecture and mood of Jamestown’s Main Street immediately caught my eye and for the last five years I documented this environment. Jamestown is no longer a vital center of commerce. Many buildings are in disrepair; there are few renovations and a minimal number of new buildings. Looking over these photographs, many questions beg to be asked. What happened? Where are the shoppers and where did the retail businesses go? Did large employers close their doors? Did the bypass encourage residents to move from the city?
As an adjunct instructor at Jamestown Community College, many of my students emphatically state, “I can't wait to leave Jamestown after graduation.” Their future plans do not include this town or region. Few employers require their skills and they dream of a larger city with exciting activities and professional opportunities. Yet Jamestown can be stimulating. If you cannot find inspiration or opportunities in your own back yard, you will not find them wherever you search. The Jamestown Series is not just a photographic statement of loss or despair; it is an intimate look at the aesthetic beauty within this forgotten urban environment. - Don Hill
What is the beauty that Don Hill perceives, captures in his camera and prints on photographic paper? A photograph is always more than the obvious objects or subjects that are first seen and represented. Hill sees beyond the obvious and responds to the subtleties of the objects and the non-representational shapes and design elements fprmed by the objects. His works become lessons in perception, imaginative design, and black and white sensibilities. The Electronic Supply photograph illustrates the multi-faceted visual experiences provided by a well-conceived photograph. What will most individuals see at first? If you take a long look and perhaps meditate on the images, what is revealed? There are many aesthetic subtleties and intriguing objects to feel, experience, and ponder.
The left window is unusual and includes an American flag that has two distinct sections (one dark and one light), the center bricked-over window blocks all light, and the right window holds an air conditioner, plus a weird image of two women. We could all engage our imaginations and attach poetic meaning to these features or try to guess the owners message, if one is intended. It’s fun, to think of meanings for the signs, symbols, and metaphors. New buildings are not peculiar. Buildings, like people, take years to become eccentric and like the eccentrics I know, they are a delight see and experience.
Viewers can also see this image in terms of purely aesthetic design elements by focusing on the textures, lines, shapes, forms, contrasts, and tones. Squint your eyes, notice that the representational objects dissolve; then look at the non-representational shapes. The sign becomes an interesting pattern of geometric shapes with high contrast. The left window becomes white frames that hold the vertical shapes of the flag and the white dots in a black field. The center window becomes a set of gray block rectangles that are stacked up with smaller brick rectangles on the top. The right window becomes a rectangle with a set of rectangles within rectangles. The far right side presents a subtle set of geometric elements. Many individuals will like this image just because of it’s variety of contrasts and rich black and white tones.
To discover more about images like Don Hill’s, research Edward Hopper, the great formalist painter who influenced many modern painters and photographers and investigate photographers like Minor White, Margaret Bourke-White, Joseph Sudek, Dorothea Lange, Aaron Siskind, and Jan Groover just to name a few. - James D. Colby