escape

elements of poverty

very near where my great uncle (or some relation like that on my father's side) used to have a small grocery store, an artist friend began to rent a portion of the top floor of an old warehouse turning it into a studio. there, i would attempt to disappear into the creative space to harness some roaming creativity and inspiration. unfortunate for my studies, the creativity very rarely lead to academic process, but instead to photography and writing. it became a place where i furthered the practice of an art/science that i enjoy. there i began to develop my fundamental knowledge of photography and a sort of portfolio of digital images that will slowly make their way to this site.

the building in the shot above is from the parking lot of the warehouse, across a side street of w. 8th towards price hill. price hill used to be an affluent extension of downtown cincinnati but is now a neighborhood in continual marginal transition; one group to another. the lower part is appropriately called lower price hill and has a markedly lower average income; likely significantly lower than the less-than-swelled poverty line. the marginal migration toward the lower price hill area is in part due to the lack of investment in the area, as compared to much of downtown Cincinnati which has signs of the process of gentrification in pockets throughout the city, pushing the lower income urban space slowly toward the outskirts of the city.

on a sunny day, with the same simple gear as always, i went on a brief urban photo shoot. this is one of many photos from the series of urban buildings during that shoot. this image plays with the idea of exposure in two ways exposure to light and exposure to poverty, which seem as polar opposites. the over exposure of the brick and the high contrast between the highs and lows of the building gives it a sense of hopelessness with an exposure to the "elements" of poverty and light.