Van-Del Drive-in Theater, Middlepoint, OhioTuesday, May 05, 2009
WP Supplemental: Workshop
I've learned that "we have a go" for my Introduction to Platinum/Palladium weekend workshop at The Center for Alternative Photography coming up May 16-17 in New York. There are one or two spaces still available, so if you're interested in a platinum workshop and can get to NYC two weeks from now, this is the time to jump. Follow the link for details.
Van-Del Drive-in Theater, Middlepoint, Ohio
Van-Del Drive-in Theater, Middlepoint, Ohio
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7 comments:
Great light. In this quite low-contrast treatment the image gives a very special almost transparent, floating impression.
Just had a look at your web site. Apparently the same image there, but it gives a much darker impression... The lightness I was describing is missing for me in this version.
Markus, there's an older web page on my site with DI theater pictures scanned from the platinum prints, which is a problematic approach. I've been meaning to replace that set online. The one I put here is scanned directly from the 8x10-inch negative and handled to keep a very open look. It's from this set of scans that you might like a look at:
http://www.carlweese.com/DIbig/index.htm
Thanks for showing the link to the recent scans. I liked #18, where the families suddenly fill the previously empty theatres. Also, #30 looked familiar. Is that the one near Green Bank, WV that I stumbled across a year or so ago?
How are you doing your scans these days? And isn't it time for a book on the drive-ins?
regards,
scott
Scott, yes that is "The Bartow," in West Virginia. I have a wonderful interview there with one of the brothers who ran the theater for many years--he was up in his eighties at the time.
I'm scanning with a Microtek 9800XL. It's big, tabloid size, and has excellent dynamic range. Resolution is low by current standards but since I'm starting with such large negatives that doesn't matter.
I'd love to combine the pictures and interviews with historical narrative to make a book, but first I need to get out to the west coast and southwest, and also get a publisher interested.
Carl, what an amazing series - Scott is right with his idea about a book.
The aesthetic quality of this pictures is superb, again that effortlessness that pairs fine with the bright tones and with the sometimes overgrown structures. But fascinating for me also are these drive-ins per se, as you won't find many of these in Germany, maybe in bigger cities, and I don't know how much of them are still functional. In this sense I also regard this series as a register of cultural heritage, both because it must be connected with the lives of many past visitors, and also because the screens have definitely landmark qualities.
Markus, the plan has been as a book (and original prints of course) from the outset, which is nearly ten years ago. The Drive-in Theater is a uniquely American phenomenon: there were 5,000 of them at peak across the country. Canada also had quite a few, but Australia is the only country in another part of the world to adopt them. Germany used to have just a couple, may still.
Cities are the last place to look for them, though: rising land prices are fatal to DI theaters. There are about 450 still operating here (something like 1300 active screens) but most are in rural areas. There's all sorts of fascinating sociological aspects to this that will make a fascinating text, not to mention the romance of the road and the automobile, and the romance of the DI itself. Also, the interviews are great whenever I get to a theater that is still operating. Dull people are not drawn to this line of work ;-) so the stories are wonderful.
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