July 18th 2005, while out driving, I noticed a location where some type of accident occurred. Maybe it was no tribulation but rather a prediction of things to come. Today almost everyone has a small portable cell phone. Even young children in elementary school are avid phone-junkies. It seems the population feels the need to be connected to the World Wide Web twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. The outdated pay phone is quickly becoming nothing more than a site-specific sculpture, on display for a limited time. I truly cannot remember the last time I dropped a coin in the slot and used one…
While investigating this particular object, I noticed another pay phone just up the street. I recalled a photographer from my history of photography lectures, O. Winston Link. I am theorizing, but I contemplate while he sat waiting for a train to pass from the tracks, it dawned on him the steam engine locomotive's popularity was diminishing. Could photography save this powerful dinosaur? The romantic sight and sound of this huge, powerful ebony machine billowing out ash and white steam coming into your town is gone.
One can visit theme parks to see their outer pistons displaying archaic strength. Now the diesel engine lumbers by as the air-horn atop blasts prior to each intersection of asphalt. Link went on to make some of the most important photographs in American history. If you are unfamiliar with his work, pleasure awaits you. Visit Link Museum.
My comparison here is similar thoughts. Link's photography, with his passion for the steam engine served him well. With my Phone series, I am documenting the actual phone and the space in which it is located. Time will tell of my observations, but I am interested in the use of this public object to have a private conversation albeit with someone at another place.
As I posted this morning, I searched for my first pay phone image. Here is the first, I think, and I will be sharing numerous others in the days to come…
Buffalo Trail; Morristown, Tennessee 2005
