29-NOV-2014
Main Library, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
The city’s main library opened in 2005. It cost one hundred million dollars, and is the largest public library in the state of Florida. I made this photograph from a side street. In the background is the entrance to Hemming Plaza, the first and oldest park in the city. Many unemployed and homeless people congregate around this park and library. The people in this photograph could be among them. It may be a pleasant and pastoral scene, yet it can’t mask the social problems that are present in most, if not all, urban downtown areas.
29-NOV-2014
Namesake, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
In this image, a handsome equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, the first governor of the Florida territory and the seventh president of the United States, appropriately tips its hat to the sleek cathedrals of commerce that now soar over Jacksonville, his namesake town. (Jackson’s name is often associated with money – his portrait graces the US $20 bill, his administration paid off the entire national debt in 1835, and his subsequent banking decisions led to financial panic of 1837.) This memorial to “Old Hickory” is one of four identical equestrian statues of Jackson by the sculptor Clark Mills. The others stand in Jackson Square in New Orleans, in Nashville on the grounds of the Tennessee state capitol, and in Washington DC’s Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House. (Mills also created the Statue of Freedom, which sits atop the US Capitol dome.)
30-NOV-2014
Cop at work, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
I made this photograph on sheer instinct, without any thought or pre-planning. I saw a small child, looking somewhat vulnerable and bewildered, crossing a downtown intersection. Another family member was walking ahead of her, and was well out of the frame when I made this image. A Jacksonville policeman, pencil and paper in hand, was working on another task at this street corner when he suddenly turned to watch this child cross the street. My cropped image takes the scene out of its context. The child now appears to be alone and possibly lost or confused. The cop seems to have stopped everything to keep an eagle eye on this kid. Did he? I leave such interpretation to the viewer. I converted the image from color to black and white to intensify the photojournalistic context.
30-NOV-2014
Kennedy Monument, Hemming Plaza, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
Hemming Plaza has always been regarded as the center of downtown Jacksonville. It was the first and oldest park in the city. It once contained bandstands, fountains, rest rooms, and a tourism bureau. In October of 1960, presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon both gave speeches here a few hours apart, and President Lyndon Johnson also spoke here in 1964. Over the years, major stores lined the adjoining streets. The park was in the news all though the 60s, as race riots erupted during civil rights protests. During the following years, the city was integrated, and the park had changed forever. The city converted it to a paved square, changing its name to Hemming Plaza, retailers left the area, and their empty store fronts attracted the homeless, who now congregate both in the park and around the new city library across the street. I made this ironic image of a person incongruously dozing at the base of a monument to Kennedy. The formality of the brass tablet, and the historical context it provides, contrasts strongly to the circumstances currently facing the man who sleeps in front of it.
30-NOV-2014
Fist Bump, Main Library, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
A fist bump, a spontaneous gesture of friendship and solidarity, brightens the day of two men greeting each other along side of the city’s main library, which has become a hangout for many local residents, including numerous homeless people. A woman reading in an adjacent niche never sees the greeting. The side-by-side window niches tell different stories
30-NOV-2014
Sole survivor, Main and Bay Street, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
This lion’s head stands alone on a street corner in Jacksonville. I moved in on it to reveal both texture and detail that help tell its story. The furrowed brow and downcast eyes lead down to what appears to be a bag of fruit clamped within its jaws. There seems to be no reason for it to be here – there is no plaque or sign that tells its tale. I later researched this architectural fragment, and discovered that it is the sole surviving decorative element of a historic Jacksonville printing firm known as the H.&W.B. Drew Company. Founded in 1855, for well over a century Drew Printing was one of the oldest businesses in Florida in continuous operation. The great fire of 1901 destroyed its original building and a new one was built the following year. That building was demolished in 1971 to make way for Jacksonville’s soaring Wells-Fargo Center. All that remains of that Drew building built 112 years ago is this lion’s head, one of a pair of cast-stone creatures that once looked down upon the city from its ornate fourth floor façade.
29-NOV-2014
Midnight City, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
This mural, by an artist known as MactruQue, covers the side of Urban Core/Burrito building in downtown Jacksonville. Entitled “Midnight City,” it is the artist’s biggest project to date. I choose a vantage point that places the trunk of a palm tree at the spot where the two different sides of the street in the mural collide. Its buildings seem to come to life by night as they bend and flow into each other. I waited for a pedestrian to walk between the palm tree and the left edge of the frame, and made this photograph. The pedestrian never seems to notice the explosion of color and scale incongruity looming behind him.
29-NOV-2014
Jaguar in the ruin, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
An old downtown Jacksonville building, possibly destined for demolition, incongruously hosts a mural featuring a large, complacent jaguar dozing within two of its bricked up windows. My image, made with the help of the setting sun, also features a vintage brick wall, pairing the art of bricklaying with the art of making murals. The less than forceful jaguar could be a current reference to the lackluster status of the city’s National Football League team, the Jacksonville Jaguars.
29-NOV-2014
Up from the Ashes, Lerner Building, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
I photographed part of the top half of a mural sprawling the width of Jacksonville’s vacant Lerner Building, a joint collaboration by local artists who are trying to urge residents to support downtown renewal and see it return to the epicenter it once was. Although I cropped out its “Rise from the Ashes” slogan, I relate the head of a soaring bird, perhaps an eagle representing a symbolic bird rising like a phoenix from the ashes, to a row of windows reflecting abstractions of the renovated 1926 Roosevelt Hotel just across the street, now converted to luxury apartments known as The Carling.
30-NOV-2014
Selfie, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
Part of the Wells Fargo Center, once the tallest building in Florida, is reflected here in the ground floor window of a neighboring structure. I saw my own figure reflected in this window as well, and made this geometrically composed “selfie” portrait of myself. The window’s curving surfaces distort and abstract my silhouette, as well as the lines of the reflected building. The vertical and horizontal lines that flow throughout the image combine hints of both cubism and surrealism with a color palette reminiscent of Edward Hopper’s paintings.
29-NOV-2014
Parking garage, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
I made this image of a parking garage at night from an eighth floor window of a neighboring hotel. My very high vantage point allows me to juxtapose the silhouetted figure, at center, of a man striding past the illuminated garage exit. It also helps me pair another figure, at far left, with a diagonal ramp leading to the second floor of the garage. These people seem dwarfed in scale by the massive shadowy structure, suggesting the lonely and somewhat threatening nature of an urban area at night.
29-NOV-2014
Holiday sail, St. John’s River, Jacksonville, Florida, 2014
I combine the romance of the sea with holiday festivity by photographing just one of the hundreds of illuminated sailboats passing along Jacksonville’s St. John’s River during the city’s annual “Light Boat Parade,” a civic celebration kicking off the holiday season. This overhead view, which I shot from my hotel window eight stories above the scene, emphasizes the strikingly abstracted colors reflected upon the surface of the river itself. Four additional reflections, created by an illuminated bridge and another decorated craft, intensify the effect.