{"id":6399,"date":"2013-03-29T12:26:11","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T19:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=6399"},"modified":"2013-03-30T06:55:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-30T13:55:43","slug":"mall-series-documenting-the-daily-life-of-people-at-a-mall-in-1984-by-stephen-dirado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/29\/mall-series-documenting-the-daily-life-of-people-at-a-mall-in-1984-by-stephen-dirado\/","title":{"rendered":"“Mall Series”: Documenting the Daily Life of People at a Mall in 1984 by Stephen DiRado"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eric’s Note<\/strong>:\u00c2\u00a0Stephen DiRado<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0is based in Worcester, MA. and has been exhibiting his photographs since 1983.\u00c2\u00a0He is a Photography Senior Lecturer in the Studio Arts Program in the Visual and Performing Arts Department at Clark University. Stephen has also recently received the\u00c2\u00a0prestigious\u00c2\u00a0Guggenheim fellowship<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0to continue his photographic projects. In addition, he has finished his film “Summer Spent<\/a>,” a personal documentary about recording beach goers on the island of Martha’s Vineyard\u00c2\u00a0on a large-format camera.
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The emergence of the shopping mall during the later part of last century was like heaven opening many doors for a healthy middle-class to venture.\u00c2\u00a0 As a subject it was under the radar of artists, accept for possibly George Romero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cult film Dawn of the Dead<\/em> in the late 70s, where zombies roamed about in a suburban mall in Pennsylvania. Shopper\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s World, in Framingham, Massachusetts was located just miles from where I grew up. My parents loved shopping there, but I was emotionally terrorized with all of its multilevel ramps, dead end corridors, multiplex cinemas and endless parking lots.<\/p>\n

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Despondent towards malls in general, I explored the possibilities of documenting a number of them in my area during the spring of 1984. I investigated newly built suburban malls but decided on an urban, two story, sprawling mall with its numerous outlets and two anchor stores just blocks from where I live. The Worcester Galleria, built in the 1970s, then at its apex in its short lived popularity, was a perfect environment for me to document its daily life. Coincidently, during my brief three year residency, I also recorded the beginnings of its decline.<\/p>\n

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With permission from management I had total freedom to roam about and photograph. I averaged eighteen hours per week for almost three years to pile up thousands of 4×5 negatives. In the end, I edited the work down to 60, give or take, that exemplified the community that typifies the mall.<\/p>\n

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My work concluded with a solo exhibition at the Worcester Art Museum, titled Galleria Series that opened during the fall of 1986.\u00c2\u00a0 (Since, I have titled this work: Mall Series<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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I used an old Burke and James monorail 4×5 view camera, mounted with a 90mm Schneider lens to make all the photographs for this series. For light, I used a Sunpak flash not synced to the camera.\u00c2\u00a0 All my exposures were a quarter, or a half second at f22; long enough duration to simply hit the test button to illuminate my subject. Tri-x film over exposed and underdeveloped, or exposed at a 100 ISO setting was a technique I used throughout the project to reduce the vast contrast experienced throughout the mall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s environment.<\/p>\n

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You can see the rest of Mall Series on Stephen’s website\u00c2\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Summer Spent<\/span><\/h2>\n