Mitch Epstein, Amos Coal Power Plant, 2004

I rarely wish that I had created a particular photograph, but I do envy Mitch Epstein for this picture, which is part of the ICP’s upcoming 2006 Triennial.

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In the Commonwealth of Massachusetts more than six million residents occupy only 7838 square miles of land. Humans suffuse the landscape, creating a mosaic of housing, farmland, and natural space. I travel to see and photograph what our built environment in this narrow sliver of America looks like and how we relate to our natural spaces and to each other. Most of my recent work examines tensions and transitions at the nexus of different land uses.

A scarcity of land available for new development in Massachusetts (partly the result of peculiar zoning regulations) has driven up the price of traditional suburban homesteads, both old and new. But the desire for home ownership and the dream of social mobility remains untempered by the high cost, leading many new homeowners to look at lots once considered marginal. For instance, a surprising number of upwardly mobile suburbanites have built their starter dream homes abutting power line corridors, sometimes with the poles in their front yards. The “High Tension” series is an on-going visual exploration of what happens when NIMBY meets an actual backyard.

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Images from the High Tension series.

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I knew that the Commonwealth project was going to be big, but I only started to get an inkling in January, 2005, when Leslie and I were walking along the levee outside Nicolaus, California.

“Everyone is going to want to buy your book.” For a photography monograph to have more than a hundred plates is unusual. With my project, having just one for each municipality still means 351 images. How does an observer look at that many images? How can they be presented without overwhelming the viewer?

Fortunately (?) I’m quite some distance away from having to worry about publishing the entire series. At last count I have images from about 30 towns. Beth from the Camera Club told me to get cracking, but the last thing I want this to be is anything like birding. Hopedale: check! Brockton: check! Still waiting to see a Chicopee in its native surroundings.

The size of the Commonwealth project opens a possibility I hadn’t expected: subprojects. I had always expected themes to emerge, but in the last half year two new projects have sprung forth. I’ve already shown the first set images from the Signs of Nature series. While photographing on Presidents’ Day I realized the beginnings of the High Tension series.

A month earlier in Tewksbury I photographed the houses of people living under the hum of high tension power lines. Yes, the amazingly high cost of living in the Bay State has led a surprising number of upwardly mobile suburbanites to build their starter dream homes abutting power line corridors, sometimes with the poles in their front yards. In February I continued the series in Littleton, Mass., where I realized people were settling on where they settled. There must be a sort of tension that exists where NIMBY meets an actual backyard. And how much stranger for upper-middle class folks to actually choose to locate near an existing hazard.

When time permits, I’ll post a few of the first images from the High Tension subproject.

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