Articles
A Photographer Instagrams the Poorest Places in the US
Matt Black covered 18,000 miles of the poorest places in the United States. His Geography of Poverty project was presented in two main ways, one through a multimedia feature on on MSNBC, and the other through a real-time Instagram feed that harnessed the geotagging features of the social media platform to map the country’s marginalized corners.
Currently his Geography of Poverty photographs are on view at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side. Black’s journey, honored this year by Magnum which named him one of their nominees, was also presented at last month’s Photoville in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where a huge map displayed selected photographs accompanied by census data. The series is simultaneously a traditional documentary photography project with the black-and-white style of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era work, where no detail was too small to reveal the trials of daily life, and an experiment in data visualization. Black recently posted a map based on the geotagged data chronicling the whole route. Each place he visited has a poverty rate above 20%, and these statistics are starkly presented beneath each photograph on his Instagram (@mattblack_blackmatt).
Some photographs are direct, like a man searching for scrap metal in the debris of Flint, Michigan, where 41.5% of its population lives below the poverty level. In another a man in Kern County, California — where 22% of the population lives below the poverty level — reveals a bandage on his arm; Black notes that “those with low incomes are up to twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.” Others are close portraits of faces framed by inky darkness, while many are more ambiguous. In Syracuse, New York, where in a population of 145,170 the poverty level is 34.6%, a man in a suit walks through the shadowy contrast of giant classical columns, and in Tulare, California, where 21.4% of its 59,278 citizens are below the poverty level, an ominous crowd of birds perches on power lines.
In an essay accompanying the feature component on MSNBC, Pulitzer-winner Trymaine Lee writes:
Matt Black: The Geography of Poverty continues at Anastasia Photo (143 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through November 1.
This past summer photographer Currently his Geography of Poverty photographs are on view at Anastasia Photo on the Lower East Side. Black’s journey, honored this year by Magnum which named him one of their nominees, was also presented at last month’s Photoville in Brooklyn Bridge Park, where a huge map displayed selected photographs accompanied by census data. The series is simultaneously a traditional documentary photography project with the black-and-white style of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange’s Depression-era work, where no detail was too small to reveal the trials of daily life, and an experiment in data visualization. Black recently posted a map based on the geotagged data chronicling the whole route. Each place he visited has a poverty rate above 20%, and these statistics are starkly presented beneath each photograph on his Instagram (@mattblack_blackmatt).
Some photographs are direct, like a man searching for scrap metal in the debris of Flint, Michigan, where 41.5% of its population lives below the poverty level. In another a man in Kern County, California — where 22% of the population lives below the poverty level — reveals a bandage on his arm; Black notes that “those with low incomes are up to twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes.” Others are close portraits of faces framed by inky darkness, while many are more ambiguous. In Syracuse, New York, where in a population of 145,170 the poverty level is 34.6%, a man in a suit walks through the shadowy contrast of giant classical columns, and in Tulare, California, where 21.4% of its 59,278 citizens are below the poverty level, an ominous crowd of birds perches on power lines.
In an essay accompanying the feature component on MSNBC, Pulitzer-winner Trymaine Lee writes:
From border to border, high-poverty rates have crippled entire communities, leaving bellies burning with hunger and hope of better days dwindling. Income inequality has widened in recent decades while upward mobility has declined. A tiny percentage of high income Americans hold the majority of the wealth in this country.Lee adds that the “poverty rate for African Americans and Hispanics is particularly stark, with 27% and 23.5% respectively falling below the poverty line.” For two decades prior to the Geography of Poverty project, Black photographed the economic hardships of Central Valley in his home state of California. However, he wanted to emphasize that poverty was not just a rural problem, that it is everywhere in the country, and it’s possible to circle the whole United States by only passing through these impoverished areas. The Geography of Poverty is in this way a portraiture project, where near and far the data of inequality is mirrored by powerful, first-hand visuals.
Matt Black: The Geography of Poverty continues at Anastasia Photo (143 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through November 1.
16 Comments
mdieri
Boston 17 hours agoJammer
mpls 17 hours agoIvanna
Vancouver September 29, 2015Jacinta Escudos
El Salvador September 29, 2015Fátima Teixeira
Portugal, Madeira Island September 29, 2015DCC
NYC September 28, 2015Robert
South Carolina September 27, 2015Theresa.
New York September 27, 2015winthropo muchacho
durham, nc September 27, 2015Peter Blau
NY Metro September 27, 2015Peter Blau
NY Metro September 27, 2015"I've gotten to be such an acclaimed photog that I was able to hoodwink the Times into flying me all the way to Tokyo (likely Business Class and probably with an assistant or two) and put me up 5 nights in a 5 star hotel, even though I told them I'dstay inside my room the entire time."
"And best of all, after ALL that money, all I came back with -- aside from a couple of skyline shots they could have gotten from any stock house -- are a bunch of nice shots I could just as easily have set up in a NY studio, with the help of a couple of models supplied by the concierge at the Hotel Kitano)"
I also question his taste in movies, proclaiming the setting was inspired by his devotion to "Lost in Translation" -- one of the most boring, pointless films in recent memory. Like this photo essay, that film was also an ego piece, designed to demonstrate how Bill Murray was so fabulous he didn't even have to try to act, and that Francis Ford Coppola, as of 2003 at least, still had enough Hollywood mojo left to get backing for his daughter to direct a feature.
jsf
pa. September 27, 2015george eliot
annapolis, md September 27, 2015nw2
New York September 27, 2015So a photographer goes to Tokyo and stays in a hotel he saw in an American movie; he imports some people who seem stereotypically quirky and odd, like in the movie. One of the women has a wig reminiscent of one worn in the movie. Maybe he should have stayed home and just used some stills from the movie. . .
jhonatan vega
Ecuador September 24, 2015cindy augustine
nyc September 24, 201516 Comments