Documentary Thoughts

   Regardless of how my documentary turned out in the end, the experience of it has been invaluable, and the lessons I have learned from it are ones that I can apply to all of my work in the future (both in photography and elsewhere). If you had asked me just a few months ago to hunt down a stranger in a different town and ask them to collaborate with me on a project, I wouldn't have thought I could possibly achieve that. Although the project has been done for several days now, I am still finding myself thinking about it all the time, which is a clear indicator to me that the project was worth something substantial in and of itself.

   I don't know why I care so much about Gerry Matthews and his little museum in Walla Walla, but I do. I found Gerry's museum through the website Atlas Obscura, and I was immediately intrigued by the polarizing reviews of his work. One online reviewer describes Gerry's work as "a weird collection of a perverted old man's garbage sculptures." - a review Gerry clearly revels in. Clearly this retired man from New York had something to say, but why hadn't anyone I talked to know about him? In a fairly conservative area, Matthews' parody of religious figures and revered world leaders exists as an oasis of Dadaism and iconoclastic ideals in a surrounding area that takes itself much too seriously. After talking with Gerry, it is clear that he has no stake in whether his work appeals to the world at large; all he asks is that a few who wander in to his mind give him a round of applause, and I hope to do that with my project.

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