MORE DRIVE BY, 2008

Copyright for text and photos: Jan Krcmar 2008
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I know, the title sucks. "Drive by shooting" as a name for photographs shot out of a moving train or car is about as funny, witty, amusing and imaginative as a knock-knock joke. But I could not come up with anything new.



I did a similar series in 2006, when driving from NYC to Buffalo, which is exactly where these pictures were taken. Only two years later. Different lens and a much darker atmosphere this time. But still something very American, seen through European eyes. The US are a country, in which people move and drive a lot. A lot. And longer distances than in Europe. So they see landscapes through different eyes.



If you travel for seven, eight, twelve, fifteen hours, you realise, that the landscape has started moving, not you. Mountains are no longer huge objects sitting still at the end of the horizon. They move, if very slowly. But compary to them, railroad crossings and buildings or trees swoosh by your window and you have to be fast to get them. The reflection of the lights inside the train in the picture is an integral part of the photograph and the entire idea. I want to show the scene exactly as I saw it, and if I saw the image through a dirty window with the reflection of a lamp in the glass, that's what you should see as well.