Elegy, by Justin Kimbal

ZEKE Magazine/Fall 2017

Social Documentary Network

ELEGY

By Justin Kimball
Radius Books, 2016
87 plates /$55.00

Elegy, by Justin Kimball, is an extraordinary body of work captured in small towns of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Ohio that have fallen on hard times during the last recession and were passed over by the recovery as the centers of economic activity became grossly over-concentrated in New York, San Francisco, Boston, and other global urban centers. In its wake is left the texture of human and material decay that Kimball records with both impeccable technical precision and the empathy, wit, and the framing of an artist steeped in the history of photography, literature, the arts, and social awareness.

While decrepit old buildings in rural America is a common theme among photographers, Kimball reminds us how meaningful and rich these images can be when created by someone with his talent, training, and vision.

For instance, “Cliff Street” (plate 27, pictured above), shows a barefoot man on his front step looking downward, forlorn and contemplative (of what, we are only left to guess). The chipped paint, rusty mailbox, debris (possibly spent bags of heroin), stuffed beneath the stoop, all indicate that this is a neighborhood not on the upswing. The entire left side of the frame is a large window with shabby drapes, an American flag hanging from above, and a cat sitting on the window sill, also looking downward and as forlorn and contemplative as the man. The man and the cat are each residents of what is now flyover country with diminishing prospects of prosperity.

Looking through Elegy in 2017, one is painfully aware of how prescient this work is, created earlier in the decade and certainly before Donald Trump was elected president by the residents of the communities photographed by Kimball. While the urban, educated, and tech-savvy residents of more affluent areas cannot fathom why the dispossessed would support a party and a man that will only make their lot worse, looking at these photographs makes us aware, and perhaps shameful, of the desperation that would allow for this, and perhaps our own complicity.

“Federal and Washington Street” (Plate 78), is one of many images layered in meaning. Crossing street signs for Federal St. and Washington St. are in the foreground. What is being commented on here is our federal system of government, gridlock in Washington, our inability to solve the most important national problems of poverty and the lack of opportunity. Behind these signs is a small nondescript building covered in mildew, grime, weeds, and graffiti. Affixed to the building is a pristine Re/Max “For Sale” real estate sign with the picture of a glowing and suited real estate agent forever optimistic about the future. One walks away feeling that much more is needed than the over-the-top showmanship of a man intent on making a deal.

While a more traditional documentary photographer may show us in greater and bolder detail the decay and lost hopes, Kimball does it more subtly and leaves us with a lingering, if not tactile sense of the existential problems. And while many documentary photographers may also be activists, working on issues of policy and politics as well as on their photography, Kimball is an educator returning to his students at Amherst College, who we hope will learn a moral lesson about their place of privilege and their role in the future of their country, from the work of their brilliant and talented teacher of photography.

—Glenn Ruga

ZEKE is published by Social Documentary Network (SDN), an organization promoting visual storytelling about global themes. Started as a website in 2008, today SDN works with thousands of photographers around the world to tell important stories through the visual medium of photography and multimedia. Since 2008, SDN has featured more than 2,800 exhibits on its website and has had gallery exhibitions in major cities around the world. All the work featured in ZEKE first appeared on the SDN website,www.socialdocumentary.net.

Fall 2017 Vol. 3/No. 2

ZEKE

Executive Editor: Glenn Ruga
Editor: Barbara Ayotte

Social Documentary Network Advisory Committee

Barbara Ayotte, Medford, MA
Senior Director of Strategic
Communications
Management Sciences for Health

Lori Grinker, New York, NY
Independent Photographer and Educator

Catherine Karnow, San Francisco, CA
Independent Photographer and Educator

Ed Kashi, Montclair, NJ
Member of VII photo agency
Photographer, Filmmaker, Educator

Reza, Paris, France
Photographer and Humanist

Molly Roberts, Washington, DC
Senior Photography Editor, National Geographic

Jeffrey D. Smith, New York NY
Director, Contact Press Images

Jamey Stillings, Sante Fe, NM
Independent Photographer

Steve Walker, Danbury, CT
Consultant and Educator

Frank Ward, Williamsburg, MA
Photographer and Educator

Amy Yenkin, New York, NY
Independent Producer and Editor

ZEKE does not accept unsolicited submissions. To be considered for publication in ZEKE, submit your work to the SDN website either as a standard exhibit or a submission to a Call for Entries. Contributing photographers can choose to pay a fee for their work to be exhibited on SDN for a year or they can choose a free trial. Free trials have the same opportunity to be published in ZEKE as paid exhibits.

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Advertising inquiries:
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Photographers and writers featured in this issue of ZEKE

Barbara Ayotte, U.S.
Emma Brown, U.S.
Caterina Clerici, U.S. and Italy
Catherine Karnow, U.S.
Monia Lippi, U.S.
Younes Mohammad, Iraq
John Rae, U.S.
Sascha Richter, Germany
Gabriel Romero, U.S.
Anne Sahler, Germany and Japan
Astrid Schulz, England
Mick Stetson, Japan
William Thatcher Dowell, U.S.
Quan Tran, U.S.
Frank Ward, U.S.

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Cover photo by Gabriel Romero from Liberation and Longing: The Battle for Mosul. A Peshmerga soldier in the Yazidi town of Bashiqa, Iraq.