I started photographing Detroit on a chilly mourn, the first day of the year in 2004 at 7 AM. I hadn’t been in the city for a very long time, years actually. I knew nothing about the conditions, the politics. A lot was going on in the U$A back then, with the bleeding of work related to the auto industry (Detroit was once considered the automotive capital of the world – well, of the U$A at least.) The good paying manual labor jobs that gave many Detroiters the good life left town, leaving the city in shambles.
I had re-entered the magical mystical world of photography, having just purchased my first digital camera. It had been decades for me and the promise of editing software on my computer was that carrot dangling before the hidden artist within.
What I found in the neighborhoods of the city shocked me, scared the shit right out of me. How could Detroit have turned into the ravages of war on the streets? My first impulse was to get the hell out of dodge ASAP. I stood out like a white guy in a black city and from the looks of the terrain, I thought some residents might not look on me with favor. The citizens were living in abject poverty and I immediately felt the frustration and anger by those economically trapped in the city. I reluctantly posted a few pictures on a newly forming art sharing website called DeviantArt. I had just joined (and they had just emerged on the “seen”) and posted a few images. Comments rolled in immediately – so I decided to try another trek and soon it became a weekly triple crown event for me, like a religion; I wanted to expose conditions in the neighborhoods because when I started this project, we were in a state of transition in America and life in Detroit was still a secret to most.
Detroit has changed from that frigid mourn on the first day of 2004.
Toolooseletrek's Weblog 