PRO COLUMN
Tony Worobiec recounts his travels across the US pursuing personal projects
Tony Worobiec talks setting out on a personal photography project
It is argued that every human being has a novel waiting to be written, but few of us ever bring this to fruition. Something similar can also apply to photography, in so far as we all have the capacity to develop a worthy project, which can attract interest from a wider audience. Accustomed to taking the single shot, we can sometimes overlook this. Just about every photographic book I own seeks to investigate a specific issue, which is why they continue to hold my interest. Each image is designed to support the argument the photographer is aiming to highlight.
[For me] this need to work on a specific theme started in the late Nineties; on a planned trip to America I had intended to photograph Mammoth Springs in evening light, but when I arrived I saw a line of other photographers waiting to do the same. I decided there wasn’t much point continuing and so retreated to a part of the US where I sensed there would be no other photographers. I ended up in north Montana, and for the first time I encountered the abandonment of the High Plains, something I had not expected. I came across deserted homesteads full of clothes, books, toys and furniture which appeared to have been abandoned for decades.
Together with my wife Eva, I spent three weeks photographing this desolate area. When we returned home, we decided to research why this abandonment had occurred. On the basis of this we made four further trips and expanded our research into the Dakotas and western Nebraska.
We hadn’t courted any publishers, but finally we were approached by Cameron Brown (a previous co-owner of Collins & Brown), who wanted to create a new publishing company specialising in high-quality photography books. This resulted in our first joint publication
Ghosts In The Wilderness, which proved a great success and was warmly reviewed.
On the basis of the success of Ghosts, Cameron invited us to do a second book, and this time we decided to explore the old neon-illuminated institutions of the western states of America, such as cinemas, diners, motels and old theatres; this resulted in
Icons of the Highway (AAPPL).
On the basis of Icons of the
Highway, Eva and I were invited to exhibit at the prestigious Lacock Museum of Photography.
The message is a simple one: if you find a subject that interests you, dig a little deeper and see where it takes you.