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Single Exposures

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George, an old white man in fedora, tan jacket, brown pants, and red, white, and blue striped tie, holds some Christmas globes while scowling in his front yard. He's decorating. His pristine midcentury ranch home has blue shutters and an American flag hanging from a pole.
George with Christmas Ornaments, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 2013. Inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.

Artist’s Statement

I used to travel constantly or at least as much as I could afford. I slept in my car, on couches, and in cheap motels. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all. I liked being awake when the world slept. Thirty-minute exposures in the middle of the night. These photographs aren’t that, though. It’s hard photographing folks at four a.m. with a view camera. Well, except maybe for the woman wearing the dress with the marijuana pattern, photographed underneath a street light in a parking lot of some forgotten town on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.

Some of the people in these pictures I got to know, but most remain strangers and faded memories of a moment in time. George and Alvin, the two older gentlemen, both featured prominently in a documentary film I made that landed at Slamdance Film Festival before traveling around a bit. I never really wanted my pictures to tell much about the people in them, but the movie liberated me of that. They got to tell their truths. A portrait (not my favorite word) doesn’t really capture the person in it in any definitive way—something more intangible, but I can’t really name what that is and wouldn’t even want to. Not that it matters how you arrive at a picture, but I don’t really like making more than one or two exposures. Any more than that, and it feels like I’m cheating. These photographs were taken between 2009 and 2015 and to me coexist not only with the film I made but within the context of landscape photographs from that period depicting locations throughout North America where human bodies were found.

Read more from Issue 22.2.

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An old white man with a grizzled face stands in his close-cropped front yard in front of a midcentury bungalow. He wears a tan blazer, red, gray, and blue striped tie, brown fedora, and brown pleated pants. He is slightly hunched. In his left hand he holds a clutch of Christmas ornaments. Some of the bushes near his house are lit with multicolored fairy lights. An American flag hangs in front of his house.
George with Christmas Ornaments, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 2013. Inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
A white woman with an extremely orange spray tan and blonde and hot pink hair wears a purple and white striped shiny bikini top and black-and-white polka dot bikini bottoms. She has several tattoos and piercings. She stands in a parking lot with a view of a brown building and cars behind her.
Fallon, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, 2011. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
An old man with a rumpled navy trucker's hat perched on his head wears a half-tucked button-up short-sleeve shirt with the name "Tucker" embroidered on it, khakis, and comfortable shoes, He holds two large knives, one in each hand. He stands in the middle of the street in a pristine subdivision with palm trees and green lawns.
Alvin Fletcher, Ormond Beach, Florida, 2012. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
A Black woman wearing a tight-fitting dress with weed leaves printed on it, her braids pulled up into a neat twisted bun on top of her head, stands in an empty parking lot at night.
Woman in Weed Dress, Exmore, Virginia, 2015. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in
A Black woman at a carnival midway carries two inflatable balls under her arms, one pink an done blue. In her right hand she clutches a clear bag with a goldfish swimming in it. In her left, she holds her purse.
Woman at Fair with Goldfish, Metairie, Louisiana, 2014. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
A white teenage boy in a backwards cap and blue hoodie stands in front of a claw machine full of stuffed animals. He clutches a ream of tickets in his fist.
Boy with Tickets, Old Orchard Beach, Maine, 2013. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
A young white waitress in a classic yellow waitress dress with plaid collar and white half-apron leans against a tiled yellow column in front of a half-wall of tan brick.
Waitress, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2009. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
A latino man in cowboy hat, plaid shirt, belt, and black jeans, leans against the gate of his Chevy pickup. He has a dark, thick mustache and scowls.
Texas, 2013. inkjet print, 50 in x 40 in.
Neil Rough, a white man with a gray beard and black-rimmed glasses, holds a brown-feathered chicken with a fancy tuft on top of its head in the crook of his arm, obscuring his face. The bird stares directly at us.

Neil Rough

Neil Rough, largely self-taught, started making photographs in the early ’90s and started getting good at it a few years later after countless hours in the darkroom and discovering the work of artists like Robert Frank, Diane Arbus, and Garry Winogrand. He grew up on the East Coast of Canada but for thirty years has photographed extensively throughout the US.

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