J. Gordon Rodwan has photographed Detroit for the last 25 years.
“Detroit never deserved to be so maligned, which is why I decided to look for ways to show more positive views of the city,” says Gordon, who started off in a photography club. “I got tired of looking at the same photos, and decided to expose people to aspects of the city that many people are probably unaware of. I didn’t always take photos of Detroit; my work has just evolved. I started photographing Detroit’s past—I would go to the train station, abandoned apartment buildings, and instead of focusing on the dilapidated aspects, I focused on the positive aspects, such as architectural details.”
With the release of Detroit Is: An Essay in Photographs, featuring his prize-winning photography, and his son, John G. Rodwan, Jr.’s, prose, Gordon will be sharing the multifaceted layers of the city he has observed from his home in Sherwood Forest, where he has lived with his family since 1970.
Gordon points out that although there are many photo books of Detroit, most of them are concentrated on fallen structures through the lens of decay. In Detroit Is, although these aspects of decay are acknowledged, the focus on the book is meant to be inspiring, without either glorifying or ignoring the relics.
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