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I am an emerging photographer, newly relocated in the DC area. Last night I was given an assignment to shoot some black and white shots ANYWHERE that tell the story of shuttered hospitals, falling apart schools, foreclosed houses, and long unemployment lines here at home. Essentially a photo that makes folks feel the crisis in our own country.
Where in DC (or within the reach of the Metro system) would be a suitable place to start looking for these images?
I do not wish to offend anyone, simply to express what is real for so many people. I'm new in town so any help would be appreciated!
Hmmm... aside from foreclosed homes, I'm not sure a recession lasting only a year and some change is going to create the kind of apocalyptic devastation black-and-white photography loves.
Metro DC's actually doing really well relative to most places - one of the few places making jobs and continuing to expand redevelopment projects. There's a website that tracks schools that need repair, so you could probably find some there. You could also go to the old stand-by Anacostia, but their problems aren't new to this recession and won't go away after it, though there are a number of new development projects pushing into that last frontier of redevelopment in the city.
Take a trip to Detroit or even parts of Baltimore and then you might know why I don't think your assignment really exists here. It's a pretty stable city overall, and you can't link the recession to the poverty in certain quarters that's been here for decades. That'd be a little disingenuous.
Good luck, though. I would think a more interesting and appropriate assignment would be seeing what all the government funding over the past two administrations has done to DC over the past decade or so.
Theres still some abandoned store fronts on Minnesota Ave NE by Minnesota Ave station.
For the most part everything seems to be improving, but check out the area around Malcolm X park, its safe enough to walk around during the day, but you'll have to catch a bus from Anacostia station (A2, A4, A6, A8, W4)
Yeah I have to agree the DC area has been pretty well protected from the effects of the recession. There's of course the recent layoffs going on with AOL headquarted in VA but that's not really a large percentage of the DC workforce. Even Baltimore benefits from being close to DC, as does Richmond really and truly the entire states of VA and MD. So they're not the best spots to see effects of the recession either. Really and truly rush belt cities like Detroit and Cleveland are going to be the spots not DC.
One of the unique things well...maybe not even unique, just interesting things about DC is the huge contrast between rich and poor. There are million dollar townhouses only maybe 5 or so miles from some of the worst neighborhoods in the country. I guess every city has this, but to me the polarities between the haves and have nots in DC is really striking. So something that shows the poverty that exists in one of the wealthiest parts of the country would be interesting but yeah DC's poverty is the result of years of neglect not because of the fairly recent recession.
I do not wish to offend anyone, simply to express what is real for so many people. I'm new in town so any help would be appreciated!
Not offended. If you send me a message I can tell you directly where to find these images. I see food services lines all the time even in the cold. I'm about to go stand in one tomorrow.
[quote=ZKrahmer;12390267]I am an emerging photographer, newly relocated in the DC area. Last night I was given an assignment to shoot some black and white shots ANYWHERE that tell the story of shuttered hospitals, falling apart schools, foreclosed houses, and long unemployment lines here at home. Essentially a photo that makes folks feel the crisis in our own country.
Shuttered hospitals: It's not yet shuttered, however an article on today's Washington Post front page, discusses the continuing emergency financial problems that threaten the future of United Medical Center (formerly called Greater Southeast Community hospital) located directly on Southern Avenue, less than a mile from the Southern Avenue metro station.
For generally poor areas near Metro stations, consider around the Anacostia, Congress Heights, Minnesota Avenue, and Deanwood stations.
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