Dark Florida
“You can never know too much about the shadow line and the people who walk it.” ~ Raymond Chandler
I’m excited to share a selection today from Paul Vlachos’ newest photo book, released this month. Dark Florida (available HERE) is far more than just a collection of photos. It’s a kind of imaginative journey. A meditation on darkness, and how the mind reaches into the places you can’t see. Somehow, this effect is heightened in Florida by the wet air, the dense foliage. At night, we can feel the jungle, still there, under the veneer of human civilization… TM
What is darkness?
The absence of light? A well full of promise? Something is out there. What sits in the shadows behind that building, around that corner, at the edge of the parking lot? It could be anything or nothing. You feel the darkness as much as you see it.
You absorb the elements of a photo in the head and the gut. A photograph hits the brain before a thought happens. The gut thinks faster than the head. The picture creates an impression. Later, you might look for meaning. Sometimes, there is no meaning, just a feeling.
A photo can create a mood, filtered through the viewer’s life experience. A photo tells a story and, the more dark space or empty space or blank space, the more is left to the viewer’s imagination.
Critics still grapple with the value of photography. They tend to treat a photo more as a painting than a book. It’s neither. A single photo doesn’t have the narrative arc of a book and it’s not an object the way a painting is - singular and unique. It’s more a poem.
Florida is no more or less mysterious than any other place after dark. Wherever you go, the night is full of fear and promise. What we can’t see, we imagine, and what we imagine, we cannot always comprehend. Tropical skies and luminous clouds light up if you are patient and have a steady hand.
I first went to Florida with my camera in 1999. It felt like truffle hunting. I drove around and something would strike me. I was hunting for old motel signs, but that became an excuse to stare into the darkness.
I went back to Florida a few times in the next decade and more frequently in the 2010’s. I found myself looking at the bits and beams of light that formed in the tropical air. The glowing edges between objects and the humid sky. The alien backgrounds and the moist air that plays with the light down there.
Florida is a name that conveys all kinds of images - palm trees, old people, politics, and cliches. I’m from New York City and know what it’s like to be judged for where I live. I know the cliches. The tourists in New York City always photograph the same things.
I have traveled all over America. In Florida - and everywhere else - I shoot man-made objects, rarely humans. I don’t shoot nature unless it’s part of the photo around an object. Nature is context here, not subject.
When I laid out this book, I did not include captions. I wanted each spread of two pages and four photos to speak on its own, with no distractions. When my significant other found this out, she suggested I include an index of place names and dates, so I did. If you want the date and location of a photo, the information is there.
I have returned to Florida many times in the past 25 years, and I still find myself wanting to go back. Especially in the winter, when the north becomes monochromatic and I curse the cold and the wet. At the first hint of hellish weather, I pack the car and head south with my gear.
There is little else to say.
Please enjoy the photos. It’s what I saw.
Dark Florida is available to purchase on Amazon. Buy your copy HERE.
Paul Vlachos is a writer, photographer and filmmaker. He was born in New York City, where he currently lives. He is the author of “The Space Age Now,” released in 2020, “Breaking Gravity” in 2021, and 2023’s “Exit Culture.”
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gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous. it's amazing how much gorgeous light shines throughout dark florida.
That theater is my favorite. Beautiful but abandoned. Clean yet hidings intrigues inside those art deco walls. A former palace now stripped of its titles.