Driv(ing)-By(e): Dracula

25°48'18.9"N 80°12'26.6"W

I have a habit of conscientiously avoiding the same route home. I dont necessarily go out of my way, but I do change things up a bit each day. I also don’t like take the same route home as I took to get where I was going. I remember when the habit started. I had just started working as an executive protection agent, still in training; still wearing the “FNG” hat during exercises. I was tired and not paying attention and I was followed home by someone… and I didn’t notice. Fortunately, she wasn’t dangerous or malicious, just cute and trying to be cute.

During 2019, video stores aren’t a thing. Blockbuster video, on the other hand, was very much a thing of my youth during the 80’s and 90’s while I was growing up along the western plains. Living in the country, were the nearest stop light was more than a mile away, the weekly trek into town on Friday night with my mom to get movies for the weekend was an opportunity to catch up on the latest buzz; even though the buzz was mostly gone as the movies had been in and out from the theaters by the time I got to see them. But it was exciting nonetheless. Usually, I could select one, if I had behaved all week. Birthdays and special occasions, two or maybe three(!) movies for the weekend!

During all the drives that I have taken home along NW 7th avenue, I never recognized seeing “Dracula Video.” The store sits near on the south side of an intersection and I would always be focused on the traffic light and other vehicles as I approached, particularly because I would often turn right at that intersection. This night I just happen to be stopped at a red light with an unusual amount of traffic in front of me, resulting in a few moment to observe, remember and reflect.

During 2019, I imagine their clientele is largely without high-speed internet access. Which is also without access to banking, shopping, grocery deliveries and any form of education, especially during the pandemic. Early on during the pandemic, there were many memes online about learning a new skill or taking up a new hobby while stuck at home. Just as I did not see this video store, most of their patrons may be part of the invisible “other” without access to online job training or self-improvement but among the most vulnerable of our community.

Driv(ing)-By(e): Freighty

25°50'29.4"N 80°11'47.6"W

Fright trains hold a specific place in my psyche. Even though I really didn’t like the book, “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, I romanticized about seeing the country by freight train. During 2006 when I was living in Alaska and laid off from Noritsu, I tried applying to the railroad. With 20/20 hindsight, thankfully, that didn’t work out. While I would have loved to have remained living in AIaska, I fully understood that it would be a terrible way to see the country; but I connect with the idea of traveling across the country and being On The Road. Much of my early photography, including my senior exhibition for undergrad graduation, focused on my travels, On The Road, with Roxy, my 1977 Corvette. Through the years there have been many memories of trains, but two really stood out when I shot and edited this image.

When I was in high school, a friend was killed late one night while driving on a country road when she ran into the broadside of a freight train that was traveling at high speed. There were no crossing lights at the intersection. It was a dark night. It was moonless night. And based on the lack of skid marks, she never knew what she hit. Even worse, her toddler was in the car with her. In an ironic twist, I found out about the accident the next evening when I arrived at the home of a date. I learned not only of the death of my friend, but that she was a mutual friend of my date.

For many years, my wife and I have lived in a townhouse about 40 yards from train tracks that have freight and commuter trains rolling back and forth most of the day and evening. For the most part, we rarely hear the trains go past. But, the trains have been a constant source of entertainment for our sons. Each of them, between 18 months and 3 years old, have run to the door screaming that “Freighty” is going past! Not until I I take them out and let them watch the train cars rubble by from my shoulders - counting the cars, naming the colors until the last car passes - would they stop shouting. Of course, I never let on that I loved doing that with them. If I had, they would have quickly forgotten about the trains and wanted to watch Blippi instead!

Driv(ing)-By(e): Specticals

25°49'46.1"N 80°11'46.8"W

What caught my attention at this intersection was how people were choosing to time their crossing. In Miami, pedestrians rarely pay any attention to intersections or stop lights. While I waited at the red light and traffic was crossing in front of me, a group of 3 young women began pushing a baby stroller across the street with the oncoming traffic. Like the young man on the bike, they group was wearing dark clothing and paying little attention to the traffic. The bike rider was riding circles around them, waiting for an opportunity to cross, which he began right as my light turned green and the oncoming car……

The title for this post is inspired by the bike tires and how I am reminded of the eyes in Manuel Álvarez Bravo’s 1932 image, 'Parabola optica.'

Driv(ing)-By(e): Official Business

25°48'19.9"N 80°12'26.5"W

I was at stopped at least 10 cars back from the stop light and the light had just turned green. The line of cars was slowly starting to move in the fits and starts usually indicating drivers were distracted by their phones. As is the norm in Miami, this is when pedestrians will step into the line of cars and cross the street before the oncoming traffic makes it through the intersection and up to speed. I happen to notice a police officer starting across the street from the darkness of a side street just before I released the brake…

Driv(ing)-By(e) is a title that references not just the physical creation of the images, but also my past as a forensic photographer. The physical creation of the images was mostly done while sitting in traffic. My drive home from approximately NW 7th ave and 14th street takes anywhere from 45 min to an hour as navigate through side streets and cut up and down residential streets to avoid major intersections, accidents, or multiple blocks of stop lights. There isn’t any easy, major artery from north to south or east to west that takes me directly to where I need to be. Inevitably, I still end up in bumper to bumper traffic, inching along. Stationed in the center console, close at hand, is my camera.

There are two methods I use for shooting. While at a stop light, I will look for interesting islands of light and any action that may be coming into or out of the island. Being stopped, there is time to focus, compose and wait until the light changes and traffic begins to move again. Even then, I always have a few more seconds as most drivers finish the text message or other phone-related activity. I refer to these images as, Driving-By; I just happened to have stopped for a moment. The other method is more “shooting from the hip.” Since I am using a short focal length, 35mm lens, I don’t have to worry about minimal focal distance, depth of field or framing. I just mount the camera, activate the auto focus and once it ‘beeps’ start firing the shutter as I feel the timing; never looking through the viewfinder or back screen… aka, “I’m Driving,bye!'“ Once I get the images into post-production, I see if I got anything worth editing.

Finally, the title is an ominous reference to “drive-by shootings.” As a forensic photography intern at the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office during 2003, I photographed over 700 autopsies. Quite a few were of victims from drive-by shootings and many were burned into both film and memory. In some sense, there is something at once familiar and distant about the areas I drive through. To be sure, none of these locations were actual crime scenes that I was present to photograph, but I do drive past the Medical Examiner’s office many days during the drive home.

Driv(ing)-By(e): Artist Statement

25°50'57.2"N 80°11'48.9"W

Driv(ing)-By(e), Artist Statement:

Initial Edit: August 2020

Like all big cities, Miami has residents that are extremely wealthy and those that are extremely poor. More than other areas I have lived in, San Francisco and Oakland for example, Miami’s population is more transient with both their wealth and their location. From block to block the feel of the city and the texture of the underlying social currents ebb and wane. In residential areas north of Midtown and between Northwest 2nd Avenue and North Miami Avenue, foot traffic at night seems to loosely flow inversely to the areas of gentrification, which changes from block to block, especially from west to east toward Biscayne Bay and the major areas of affluent and wealthy residents.

But even as many Miami neighborhoods are gentrified, the one thing that doesn’t seem to change is the supporting structures of the neighborhoods. For example, convenience stores, check cashing and payday loan stores, salons and fast food chains still dominate over grocery chains, banks, large retail chains and fine dining. Some may see these establishments as the last great bastion of the “Mom and Pop” American dream, but when out of balance in a poor neighborhood, there is a dramatic and well-studied impact on the community. Convenience stores often lack of fresh fruits and vegetables which don’t compete for floor space or sales units with the frozen burritos and salty snack foods. Lacking access to financial services often leads to utilizing check cashing and payday loan stores and the associated predatory fees and interest rates. Miami, which is hardly a “walkable city”, is famous for its inadequate public bus system. Without the ability to drive to a bank or grocery store or retail center to take advantage of lower fees or more variety and promotional pricing, the cycle of convenience is perpetuated by necessity and absorbs a larger ratio of an individual’s income than for a “non-poor” person with access to institutional resources and mobility.

Unlike metropolitan areas where the majority of poor are white, Miami is financially and racially segregated with large areas of poor - and working poor - Black and Latino populations which by every measure are hit harder than financially similar white populations. Population Health indicators are the canary-in-the-coalmine for the health and welfare of poor populations. The effects are reflected in almost every measure of population health: Heart disease, diabetes, access to primary care, access to prenatal care, gun violence. In all of these categories, Miami ranks among the worst.

Over the last couple of years I have become particularly reflective of what I see as I drive through the neighborhoods between my job at the Jackson / UHealth medical complex to my home, 7 miles away in one of the more affluent Miami suburbs, Miami Shores. This body of work is largely the confluence of experiences such as completing a Master’s degree specializing in Healthcare Administration, the Coronavirus Pandemic, fatherhood, employment in medical IT, watching and discussing the “Black Lives Matter” revolution, my training and experience as a photographer. The process of creating these images from the solitude of my SUV as I drove through theses social landscapes was not lost on me as I was reflecting on the other experiences.

Since March 2020, like many others, I have been working from home and rarely leaving my house. By circumstance, the shooting for this project has been completed. Since then, the areas these images were shot in have been the epicenter of the Black Lives Matter protests in and around Miami. Unfortunately, I have had very little interaction with those protests with the exception of news reports and one Saturday protest that stopped traffic along I-95 while I was traveling home from a photo assignment.

First and foremost, I recognize how fortunate I am to be able to continue working from the safety of my home when so many others, including friends and family, can not. As I am not a racial minority nor working poor, I do recognize my figurative lens is specifically “polarized” to my good fortune. I have not and cannot experience the lives of “others” visible in these images. These images and reflections are not intended to speak for anyone or anything but my own process of understanding my place in the social fabric and my willingness to accept I have ingrained prejudices that need to change.

The subsequent blog postings are a living, changing document of my reactions to the social landscapes I pass through without much interaction, but not without reflection. I expect my thoughts, feelings, reflections and reactions to change over time. To process and internalize my reactions, each image will be the subject of reflection as a blog post. I intend to edit and revise these reflections over time, specifically in response to how my thinking changes. Arrogant? Maybe. But it is also honest; if not a bit ambitious. Even as I write this statement and prepare remarks for the other images, I have found my reaction to the images changing. More to come…

Revisions: