Visiting Elk Grove
I'm intermittently retired at the moment. Which means that, aside from thinking about my future, I can dedicate more time to things I enjoy. I'm not missing my commute, but sometimes I feel I need to keep my driving instincts sharp — despite gasoline prices that seem to have come from a utopian sci-fi movie about the very distant future. While I still can afford it, I decided to methodically explore places within a two-hour drive radius from Clayton Valley (mostly to the East and North). It goes without saying that exploring a place, to me, means doing it with my camera. I also promised myself to post some photos from every place I visit on this website.
Elk Grove had been on my list for a while, and yesterday I finally made it there with my Hasselblad and the XCD 38V mounted on it.
Elk Grove is located south of Sacramento and is part of the Sacramento Metropolitan Area. It's a modern, fast-growing city, and with a population of over 180K it is the second largest in Sacramento County. Apple used to manufacture iMacs in Elk Grove up until 2002, and is still the largest employer in the city.
Elk Grove has a lot to offer — nice restaurants, coffee shops, and wine cellars. But tourist attractions are what interest me least of all. My visit was quite short, around two hours, in the middle of the day under a bright sun. So, per my usual habit, I explored utility lanes, office backyards, and other obscure places normal people don't pay attention to or don't notice. But I'm sure those places would have excited George Tice, Robert Adams, or Lewis Baltz.
To those three names I should really add a fourth: Gerry Johansson. Of the four, it's probably Johansson who comes closest to what I was actually doing in Elk Grove. His Amerika project — square frames quietly cataloging small American towns from a non-native eye — sits closest to my own working method: the square (or near-square) frame, the patient attention to nothing in particular, the empty streets. Baltz is the obvious other reference. The brick warehouse with its long windowed flank, the office courtyard, the angular HEAD SPA building are descendants of the indifferent commercial vernacular he photographed in The New Industrial Parks Near Irvine, only fifty years on. Tice surfaces in the church with the modernist cross, and Adams in the empty parking lot with its painted markings, where there's almost nothing to see and that's exactly the point.
I took a few dozen frames, finding harmony in shadow play, wires, utility pipes, and signs of vernacular Americana. I hope you enjoy the photos as much as I enjoyed my little trip. I'm sure Elk Grove will reveal more of its hidden gems next time I visit. So long… I'll be back.
