Photographer is Modern-day Hopper

It's not that Hopper painted poverty and desolate Americana. We all know (and some of us love) his play with light, his choice of subject, his point of view. Personally I also like Sheeler, exponent of what they call the Precisionist Movement: cities, machines.

But look at these incredible pictures, on exhibition (alas) @ the MOMA. In A New American Picture, photographer Doug Rickard takes viewers on a tour of the run-down, the derelict, and the economically depressed using ... Google. Rickard scouted out specific locations on Google Maps that show crippling economic devastation—boarded-up buildings in Camden, N.J., overgrown sidewalks in Detroit, and neglected lots in New Orleans. He snapped digital photographs of the scene playing out on his computer monitor. The effect is impressive and not just for the use of light and colour. The anonymity of the people in these pictures is a harsh metaphor for the anonymity of poverty.

With thanks to www.thedailybeast.com.