NPR just did a story on Photographer Kirk Crippens and the art photos he took of Stockton. Its story here includes a gallery of photographs. I like the photo of then-Mayor Ann Johnston with a mousetrap in the background. Eloquent.
Here’s a 2011 column on Crippens and his work in Stockton.
Crippens was influenced by the famous Depression-era photographer Walker Evans. Interestingly, though, Crippens eschewed people in his photographs. He let the empty homes and unfinished suburbs attest to the human misery.
From the NPR story: “His early photos of Stockton — the ones included in this gallery — show empty neighborhoods, abandoned car lots, homelessness, general desolation. In recent months, though, he says his perspective has changed. He is still processing new images, but, he says, what he’s been trying to capture is ‘the fact that life goes on.’” And indeed it does.
