Well let’s get started! In 10th place … David Plowden.
David Plowden is a critically important American photographer, especially for someone like me who isn’t a big fan of the times we live in. As I am getting older I often think about what America was like before it became the mostly homogenized plastic place it has become. Growing up in the 1950s and 60s there seemed to be so much more character, from architecture, to cars to just about everything. Cameras were made out of metal or wood, not polycarbonate or plastic. For over fifty years Plowden focused his cameras on America’s heartland, its farms, barns and prairies, bridges, steam trains, large ships that travelled the Great Lakes, urban areas and small towns, interiors of buildings, steel plants, and that which has been abandoned, capturing important images before so much or our nation’s heritage and the artifacts that are part of it vanished for good.
He has called himself an “an archeologist with a camera” who has spent his life “one step ahead of the wrecking ball” and I think this is an accurate description. Some have compared his work to that of the great WPA photographers though many of his pictures are devoid of people. Stark and often haunting images, they are incredibly serene and beautiful.
Plowden has published over twenty books, several of which I own. One of them, Imprints, is especially special to me. It’s signed by the artist and has a beautiful inscription to me. I still remember the night well. I drove up from Virginia to Towson University near Baltimore to see the opening of Plowden’s exhibit and hopefully to get a chance to meet the photographer himself. I brought my copy of the book with me with the off chance notion that not only would I get to speak with him, but maybe he would be kind enough to sign it. All’s well that ends well … I had a long chat with David, and he could not have been nicer! I even had a few very helpful follow up phone calls with him.
Plowden’s craft is impeccable and his work is visually stunning. All of the books I have are well worth owning, but you can start out with the aforementioned Imprints, which is a beautiful retrospective of his work up to 1997 when it was published.
I like to sit down in my big comfortable leather chair when I have a lot of time to think and dream about what was, instead of where we seem to be headed. That’s when I can be found looking at David Plowden’s wonderful work.
Stay safe,
Michael