The Windsor (Ont.) Star has an interesting feature about photographer Sandi Wheaton, whose black-and-white photos of Route 66 in California’s Mojave Desert will be on display beginning May 2 at Deborah Friesen Architect’s studio in Toronto.
Wheaton’s interest was piqued five years ago when she was blowing through a lonely and forsaken stretch of Route 66 at Amboy, Calif., on her way east when she spotted a For Sale sign posted at a boarded up Roy’s Cafe.
What made her stop was not because this cafe was for sale, but the whole town, lock, stock and barrel. Of course, Wheaton had no intentions of being that buyer, but the notion of hawking an entire community piqued her interest, so much so that she went about documenting it in photographs. […]
When talking with Wheaton at Elias Deli, and she spreads out images across the table of derelict gas stations, vacant and crumbling brick buildings, cracked pavement and abandoned cars, garnering the attention of others in the diner, you begin to understand her curiosity.
A photograph of a 1961 Buick with its sweeping front end catches everyone’s attention. The 43-year-old photographer smiles graciously at the compliments, especially from a man at a nearby table who tells her he owned a car like that. She captured that picture in 2004, but went back there a few months ago. It’s still there, but the roof is dented in.
Here’s an interesting part of Wheaton’s exhibit:
In an effort to capture that ambience about the place, Wheaton chose to produce an exhibit that is completely analogue or non-digital.
“My idea was that the building of the Interstate making this stretch of Route 66 obsolete echoes digital photography making many films, in particular my beloved Kodak infrared film, also obsolete,” she said.
The whole thing is worth reading. A photo of Roy’s by Wheaton can be seen here.