The present US photograph sequence by Mark Energy goes within the course of dystopia
Brighton-based photographer Mark Power has published the third volume of his five-part book series Good Morning, America, which he began shooting in 2012.
The new volume features images captured in New England in late 2019 and Arizona and New Mexico in early 2020, interspersed with archive images captured across the country, from California to South Carolina, Michigan to Maine, at the start of the project. Although the photos are very extensive, both geographically and in time, they are brought together by a sobering undertone, aided by the wintry thread that runs through many of them.
Above: Biggs Junction, Oregon, February 2019. Above: Hachita, New Mexico, January 2020. All images © Mark Power / Magnum Photos
Rumford, Maine, November 2019
Incorporating pre-existing photography into the books has always been part of Power's vision for his intentionally on-the-hoof project. "Everything's mixed up just because I'm not done yet, but there's something exciting about that," he told CR in 2018. "But I'm not trying to deal with just one subject anyway." America is far too complex for that. “While it has been a strategy since the project began, it has proven helpful in light of the disruption caused by the pandemic in the disastrous year following his last trip.
“All these pictures read differently now. The landscapes seem darker and more melancholy, as if they are slumbering and waiting for the virus to come on stage, ”writes Power in the new volume. “The editing and order in this book was done with this in mind. How could it have been otherwise? "
While a somewhat bleak aesthetic has underpinned much of Power's work in the US, the images in the new volume take on a post-apocalyptic quality in the face of the pandemic, not to mention the extremely turbulent political backdrop. Desolate landscapes and little evidence of civilization eerily prevent the devastating, isolating chaos of the pandemic, as well as the social storm that has ravaged the nation.
After the Tubbs fire. Journey & # 39; s End Mobile Home Park, Santa Rosa, California January 2018
Competition of the Single Action Shooting Society. Yuma, Arizona, January 2020
Manchester, New Hampshire, December 2019
Marshfield, Vermont, November 2019
Good Morning, America, Volume III by Mark Power, is published by GOST Books. gostbooks.com