An Enduring Enjoyment
Neil Goodwin Photos: a sampling (7 images) and a link to more
By Neil Goodwin
I’ve been taking pictures for as long as I can remember and I’ve recently been assembling some of them into an online gallery which I’d like to share it with the class. The link to it is below this text. I’ve been an architect, a film maker and a writer, and through all of those enterprises, I continued to take pictures. The first photographs that affected me deeply me were Walker Evans’s images of the towns and people of the deep south. They had an unforgettable impact on me – still do. He taught a course in photography at the Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1965 as I was finishing my training in architecture, and I leapt at the chance to study with him.
This selection of pictures from the gallery is eclectic – taken over a long period of time and in many places, using a variety of film formats and digital cameras. I took many of them in the course of travel while making films or writing, but I find things to take pictures of wherever I go. I take pictures of what interests me, surprises me, draws me in: chance encounters with ordinary people in a remarkable moment, man-made things that come to life when abandoned; ironies, ambiguities and raw beauty in landscapes, and the complexity of cityscapes.
You’re invited to see more of my images at NeilGoodwinPhotography.com.
We invite your comments.
Dear Neil,
Thanks for the wonderful pictures – what a stunning breadth of subjects and places! I suppose that it’s an indication of living 80 years that there’s been time for travel and the experience t see and record so much. I especially enjoyed the Berlin series, having spent time there.. I wonder if you’ve ever gotten to Australia to see Andy B, aka Marc-Andre?
Best for the hols.
John
Dear Neil –
I join John in marveling at the depth and breadth of your portfolios. I could spend hours on them. Your Senegal portfolio reminded me of the two and half years we spent at the tiny U.S. Embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania, a wholly desert country between Senegal and Morocco. For us, going to Senegal’s capital, Dakar, was like a small Paris, compared to Nouakchott, which had only one of most things – one paved road in the country, one hospital etc. And the people were great, as one can get a feeling of from Neil’s photos. Remarkably happy despite poverty because of a profound sense of belonging to their large extended families and communities.
We pay a price for touting the lone individual above all else.
Dear Steve,
Thanks so much for your note and for your kind words about the photographs.. I only spent a few days in SenegalI and it was had a small market town in the interior several hours drive from several hours drive East from Dakar. I was there about four years ago with my wife and some friends visiting a sustainability project run by an outfit called trees for the future. The idea is to get local people to plant their own gardens including trees that produce fruit and nuts.. These small projects produce sustenance for the families that grow them and eventually food that can be sold allowing these people to earn a living on their own instead of working for the big peanut plantations.. As you say, the sense of community and belonging in the tiny rural villages Was remarkable and hopefully these farming projects will keep the young men at home instead of drifting off to Europe as so many of them have been doing. The project seems to be thriving there and in other parts of the world where it has been operating.
All the best and happy Thanksgiving, stay well, Neil
Great i8mages, especially the 3 giraffes.