Ashley M. Jones

© Ashley Jones

www.AshleyMJones.com

The mass production and relative affordability of the automobile in the early 20th century resulted in considerable changes to our nation’s infrastructure and the need to intersect highway systems with urban neighborhoods. As a resident of Savannah, Georgia, I am fascinated by the rich history and historic architecture of the city. However, there is a stark division between the restored and legally protected buildings within the central National Historic Landmark District and the struggling, run down neighborhoods that surround it. I am specifically interested in the at-risk neighborhoods along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the ways in which they have been impacted by the construction of the Interstate 16 flyover.

This elevated section of Interstate 16, the Earl T. Shinholster Bridge, held its official ribbon cutting in 1967. The construction of the interstate coincided with several other large-scale urban renewal projects including the construction of Kayton and Fraiser homes south and east of the flyover. It intersects with the Westside of Savannah in the historically African American “Frogtown” neighborhood — a neighborhood that has been on the decline since the interchange was completed.

In 2010 I began photographically documenting the homes, businesses, and churches in the area immediately surrounding the flyover. My documentation has since expanded to include neighborhoods south of Frogtown and extending several blocks south to Victory Drive. This area includes Cuyler-Brownsville, a neighborhood similarly impacted by connection of 37th Street to I-16.

My photographs depict the current state of this community and the architectural structures that remain to provide an understanding of the historic and contemporary context of this community. I am further exploring local movements to renew and revive Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and the neighborhoods immediately impacted by the Interstate.

— Ashley M. Jones, Savannah, Georgia, USA

© Ashley Jones

Greg Jones

www.GEJones.net

My body of work, Rochester, began as an exploration of street photography in the digital age. Building on the genre’s tradition and mantra of the “decisive moment,” as well as considering contemporary photographic practices that incorporate digital technology, these photographs could be considered “constructed moments.”

I photograph the landscapes and city scenes that surround me, and by compositing together multiple frames from the scenes I photograph, I create fictional narratives of the everyday. I often look towards mid-century street photography as well as pre-modern landscape painting to inform my own work.

Often when I’m out shooting I search for imagery that resembles common motifs in those types of pictures. I see it as a way of carrying on a type of conversation with artists of the past, the subject being the myth and mundane of the life that surrounds us, and the character of the environments we live in.

— Greg Jones