The subjects of my map are the backhouses of Oberlin. Coming from the suburbs of New York City, I have never before observed this Mid-Western or perhaps just more-rural phenomenon of self-standing sheds and mini-houses used for storage. Ostensibly, the tradition relates to agriculture. In Oberlin, however, all of these houses appear to go unused –or at least ill cared for. I wanted to capture the eerie quality of their chipping paint, rotting wood and broken windows. Though tucked behind better-kept houses, they look like relics from the Depression era.
Maybe because I locate my own origins as a cartographer removed from the source of this back house tradition, I conceived of the photos as postcards form Ohio. When I researched antique postcards form the Midwest circa the 1930s, I found several landscape images that emphasized architecture integrated into a natural, woodsy landscape. My goal became to reflect and distort that tradition –to find seemingly picturesque scenes and draw out from them their more raw character.
I set my shutter speed toward the lower end to get arrhythmic movement in the tress. Against the backdrop, I hoped to enhance the feeling of stillness of the back houses in both times and space.
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