Measure of Emptiness: Grain Elevators in the American Landscape

"First off, I deeply admire Gohkle’s Measure of Emptiness precisely because of that more narrative/ varied approach to the photography he took. And the poetry of the book’s title itself, which so brilliantly describes metaphorically the feeling he was after in doing the project, is so apt, just right-on. I was trying to, and hopefully been successful at, attempting to do something similar with Silent Monoliths —but obviously not to the extent Gohlke did—by purposely deciding to divide the book into two sections, with the typology one dominating. But the second half of the book—the “Typographies” section—moves more into that narrative, lyrical mode by me shooting the towers in a larger landscape that says something different than the typology of the same material. So the two styles have a mostly equal emphasis. I’m thinking here of the photograph I made at Lees, Maryland, or the night shot at Gilman, Illinois. These two approaches to my photography—doing typologies and narrative work— have always been there. If I could show you my other photographic projects—that are not typologies—you’d see that narrative impulse at work. So in essence, by including these two approaches in the book, I’m revealing my photographic split-personality. Typologies alone can come off cold and detached. But here again—and if I can be so bold as to say—is the difference between my work and the Bechers’. Their work, which I view as Conceptual Art , has a more clinical, detached feel (which I believe was their intention), whereas my coaling towers, shot in the way I’ve shot them, have more warmth and don’t come off so clinically. Permit me one aside about the Measure of Emptiness if you will. The book, for the first time in my early engagement with photography, also got me thinking about architecture as valid subject matter, which I hadn’t consciously thought about previously. So, in a way, I can say Gohlke’s book got me indirectly to the coaling towers. Yes, exactly. His notion of the “historical contemporary” was an eye-opening expression for me to come across. That comment perfectly described and reflected what I was after in my photography and the subject matter I pursued. That it wasn’t just nostalgia—which Evans called a “blurry representation of the past.” My intent was to record every one of the towers that was still out there as the past seen in the present. And to also show an important architectural element of railroading—a remaining remnant from a different era of that industry’s history."