David Plowden

A Handful of Dust

SINCE MAKING his earliest documentary photographs in the 1950s, David Plowden has honored those proud structures and places that America has discarded—from brawny commercial and industrial centers to small towns and farms. He reveres the honest work and spirit that built them. But the scene has changed much in the last five decades, and what's left of the honesty of small communities and the working of the land is all but gone, dealt a death blow by outsourcing, conglomerization, and our incessant drive to buy cheap at any cost. The America of these photographs is a bittersweet reminder of things once cherished and a life no longer possible. Deserted Main Streets and crumbling facades stare at us blindly. Abandoned houses and buildings reach back to ground. Plowden's work is a sad symphony— incomparably and irresistibly beautiful, while reminding us of our loss.