The magazine of the photo-essay
Nov 2017 back issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
by Joshua Lutz
Under the auspices of finding Jimmy Hoffa’s body I started to explore the
meadowlands ten years ago. What initially started as a strict documentary
project has evolved into something else entirely.
Located in the most populated area of the United States, two miles west of
Manhattan is a 32 square mile radius of wetlands known as The
Meadowlands. Two thirds of these wetlands have already been filled in and
turned into an industrial wasteland commingling with motels and gas
stations. This landscape that has been dumped in, paved over, deforested,
and mined still remains to be one of the most alluring wetlands capable
of continuing to recover. The immense wilderness of the meadowlands
could potentially become one the great 21st-century open spaces for the
13 million people of the New York-New Jersey Metropolitan areas. However it is about to see more projected growth in
the next year than it has in the previous fifty. The construction of Xanadu, a five million square foot entertainment and
retail complex in conjunction with the growth of newly built, poorly planned communities could forever change these
wetlands.
On one level this project can stand as a document of this landscape as it is today. It can act as a call to action to
preserve a fading landscape and environment of open space. On the other hand this project has evolved into
addressing issues unrelated to the specifics of the document.
I am often thinking about creating images that convey a mood or a feeling, how the meadowlands can serve as a
metaphor for other issues that I am struggling with. For me it is a place of loneliness and solitude. A place where people
pass through on their way to someplace else and occasionally a place where people convene, stopping at motels to
spend the night to fill up on cheap gas and cheap sex. These somewhat disparate images tell different stories. I think of
them as songs on an album that build upon each other.
The songs may be about something specific, but more often than not the specifics become less important than the
feelings conveyed.
Adam & Aaron.
Aerial.
Airplane.
Another six houses.
Bonica.
Cars.
Clarissa.
Crown.
Dead body.
Delayed Cares.
Diaspora.
Do Not Enter.
Grey water.
Happily Ever.
Leah.
Mark Lewis.
Meadowlands Marina.
Satellite.
Towers in the water.
