“I never read; I just look at the pictures” Andy Warhol

 

                         

While working through this dense “before and after series" of photos.” I wondered How can I simplify this? “What else can these mages represent? How can they tell a story in a thought provoking, but easy, straightforward way?

The first thing I did was break the images down into categories.

The categories represent all the things we seek as we roam this earth. Some are interchangeable and al are generational.

i.e.

The Record Exchange on Richmond was a shop but at some point, it was a house where someone lived.Today there is an apartment complex where many people live. 

The Raven Grill used to be a laundrymat, and also used to be a liquor store called the Busy Bee.

The Renaissance Condominiums on Welch used to be on the same plat as Battelstein’s Department Store.

Here are examples of the seven categories I started out with:

1)      Homes / Dwellings

2)      Places of Worship

3)      Schools/Education

4)      Stores/Shopping

5)      Money/Jobs/Occupations

6)      Restaurants/Bars/Food

7)      Legacies / People/ Families / Friends

Later I realized I could siphon it down to fewer categories:

1)       The Past

2)       The Present

3)       The Future

 

Then I started playing around with the images adding my favorite movie clips and screenshots on the topic of time and made “timecards” reminiscent of having a 9- 5 job.

 

Soon after, a friend invited me to join him on a business trip to Dubai.

 

There I visited “The Frame” representing the past, present and future of Dubai and learned how the Dubai was an oil rich block of sand but ran out in 1990, but the leaders of the city  re-invented themselves and aggressively started to develop it to be one of the most beautiful tourist destinations in the world.