Ideas about place (and how we use images to describe them) are central to my own work. Though I started as a photographer shooting portraits, I realized after awhile that it wasn't people I was as interested in as the places they create.
The image above is from Richard Renaldi's new book Fall River Boys. Fall River Boys is a book that uses portraits (though not exclusively) to tell the story of a place, which is one of the reasons I find myself so drawn to the work.
The other is my familiarity with the place depicted. Fall River is a town on the south coast of Massachusetts. A former textile manufacturing center which has seen better days. I was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts...a town about fifteen minutes from Fall River; also a former textile manufacturing center (and whaling port!)...a town which has also seen better and more prosperous days. New Bedford, like Fall River, is the kind of town that most of it's residents never leave. Some do, and most of them probably never look back. The young men portrayed by Renaldi in Fall River Boys are near the crossroads where that decision will be made. In some of the images, you can see the hope in their eyes...that they might escape; in others you see young men resigned to their fate.
I can't help but spend a little extra time with the image of the Durfee High Football player. My grandfather played football for New Bedford High (Durfee's big rival). Then he married my grandmother, gave up football to work two jobs and raise a family. Lived his entire life (give or take) within a few miles of where he was born.
My parents moved our family to Florida when I was in grade school. My grandfather (the last member of my immediate family still living in the area) died several years ago. I can't say I've looked back much since, but looking through this book I feel a twinge of sadness, maybe at a loss of any personal connection to the place so many generations of my family called home.
The book can be purchased through Charles Lane Press: http://charleslanepress.com/
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