This project, titled ten convenient stores, is concerned with the consumer culture of immediacy, 24-hour availability, information overload, and the loss of local identity. The images were made after midnight and photographed with a 4×5 view camera in a straight-on objective style. I spent many nights hunting for the right locations and shooting conditions.
I was influenced in equal parts by the German photographic team of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s straight compositions of industrial landscapes and Ed Ruscha’s 1963 book Twenty Six Gasoline Stations. I photographed these stores in a straight style so the viewer is drawn to their industrial similarities and the differences in their product displays. By using a large format camera, the scene contains vastly more detail than the human eye can digest at once. Thus, it is an ideal way to document the information overload of our late-capitalistic landscape.
— Harlan Erskine, Brooklyn, New York, USA
