In last Saturday’s post on the Lens blog at the New York Times you can see 15 pictures by Mitch Epstein from his new book American Power and on the NYT itself you can read an article by Randy Kennedy about the six-year project that led to the book.
The pictures are well worth a look – faintly reminiscent of at least one recent project on the UK, but to my eye rather more interesting – and the story is also worth reading. Photographing power stations – even with an 8×10 – attracted the attention of law enforcement, and at one site he was told by an FBI man If you were Muslim, youd be cuffed and taken in for questioning. On another occasion his camera was mistaken for a missile launcher!
On Epstein’s web site you can also see work from some of his earlier projects, Family Business (2000-2003), The City (1995-1999), Vietnam (1992-1995), Common Practice (1973-1992) and Recreation (1973-1988.) Artnet also has an online catalogue.
Born in 1952, Epstein studied at Rhode Island School of Design before going on to study with Gary Winogrand at Cooper Union in 1972-4.
He was one of the long list of photographers featured in the book by Sally Eauclaire that defined ‘The New Color Photography‘ in 1981 (it included among others Harry Callahan, William Christenberry, Mark Cohen, John Divola, William Eggleston, Emmet Gowin, Jan Groover, Len Jenshel, David Hockney, Les Krims – who refused to let her use a picture, Helen Levitt, Joel Meyerowitz, John Pfahl, Stephen Shore, Sandy Skoglund, Eve Sonneman and Joel Sternfeld) and also in the more focused vision of her later volumes ‘New Color, New Work‘ and ‘American Independents.’