End of The Line

My friend Ned lent me this photo book for the week and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The photos are well-crafted, and the author details exactly how he crafted them. What’s better than that in a photo book?

The foreword, written by his son (who helped teach a photography class with his father for years) is surprisingly poignant and rambling and got me into the right mood for the rest of the book. The bit about his dog actually had me tearing up for a bit(!!) before I got through it.

It all reminded me of when I lived near the train tracks in college and I was starting to really photograph every day for the newspaper and I would hang out by the tracks and meet homeless people and I’d climb into abandoned homes and photograph whatever I found. It’s both bleak and empowering.

I definitely would have liked to meet John Free, and all his friends on the rail yards. I love his slogan:

Candid, full frame, available light

Other quotes from the book that I liked: the ‘Isolation Challenge’ and Tramps work, hoboes won’t, and bums can’t..