This isn’t Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, though I was fascinated by the unique cinematic way in which Hitchcock created the entire story through the eyes of Jimmy Stewart, laid up with a broken leg and staring out his apartment window for hours at a time. We see exactly what he sees and draw our own conclusions.
With this image, the body of the automobile was still recognizable, but every window had somehow disappeared into oblivion. The only way to record this was through the frame of the rear window. The interior was strangely intact. Replace the glass, fill it with gas, and drive away. On further observation and sober second thought, the steering wheel was gone. Might have been a bargain but for that one minor detail.
This is yet one more instance of my continued interest in the abandoned, the decayed, and the ruined. Black and white film is the perfect medium to record and reveal every detail of entropy. A black and white negative will last a hundred years, long after a digital file has degraded or been lost to new media platforms and out of date software.
“Digital, no matter what people tell you, it’s bullshit. They say, ‘Oh it looks just like film.’ It doesn’t and it never will.” ~Michael Bay
Location: Brandon, Manitoba
Date: Winter 1980
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