The Billboard Creative project pg. 2
Disconnected in Los Angeles
LA still has a ton of Payphones. It would probably take months to actually cover them all. I have been to LA numerous times in the last ten years. But this year was the first time I did a specific session looking for payphones. However, this payphone is not from that session. The ones from the session are pretty awesome and were all in one part of town near Glendale Avenue. They would make a really cool show because the environment is unmistakably LA. I shot this image when we stopped for gas before our drive back home to Oakland. I was shooting this payphone in front of El Gran Burrito when the gentleman in the picture came up from behind said hi and put his foot up on the payphone to tie his shoe. He was so tall he made the payphone look tiny! The two ladies were walking by and tried to avoid him. I got a bunch of shots of this payphone and also a couple of other payphones down the street by Linoleum City perhaps the greatest name I’ve ever heard of for a business. It would be a great setting for a sitcom.
Disconnected in New York City
I’ve shot a bunch of payphones in NYC. They are still around though many are now disconnected. There seems to essentially be three types of payphones- Titan which are big overbuilt and blocky. There are some shiny almost elegant metal ones and of course classic payphones like the one I chose to rep NYC. I love the color. Why do I like orange more than I probably should? The patterns created by the tiles are somehow competing together creating something greater than the sum of their parts visually. I really like the subtlety of the missing payphone in this picture where the holes in the orange tile are all thats left of the payphone. It’s like the footprint of some long lost extinct creature. The metro newspaper stands sit by every bit as neglected as the payphone. Soon they will all be gone.
Disconnected in Haleiwa
This image is from the island of Oahu in Hawaii. We were driving a snorkeling spot and stopped in this little town because there were a few payphones that I wanted to get. I was so happy to capture this moment. We see this woman in her bathing suit posting something on a community billboard. It just felt very small town somehow. It reminded me of a different time and certainly a different community vibe than where I live today. I read someplace a few years ago that the state of Hawaii has more working payphones per capita than any other state in the U.S. The payphones in this picture both work. I guess technically that means they are not disconnected. But for how long?