Title: Mill River
Photographer/s: Joseph Gerhard
Date of publication: September 2011
Place of publication: New Haven, CT
Dimensions: 10.5″ x 10.5″ x .6″
Edition size: 200
Type of binding: Image Wrap, Hardcover
Number of pages: 115
Type of paper: Luster
Number of pictures: 95
Type of printing: Digital (Ingigo)
Printer: Acme Bookbinding, Boston, MA
Publisher: Manton Westwood Books (self-published)
Editor: Michelle Komie
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9834849-0-5
Category: Artist Book
Price: $60
Summary: One camera. One lens. One year. One mile of river. Mill River is an extended meditation on a specific place and time—the product of sustained looking and contemplation.
This section of the river is in part created by the run-off from the Eli Whitney Dam, built in 1860 to provide a reservoir for the city of New Haven and power for Eli Whitney’s factory, then located at the base of the dam. It is an area that would now be completely covered by a mile-long, four-lane off-ramp from the nearby interstate were it not for the efforts of a passionate, grass-roots campaign in the early 1960s that successfully stopped the project. Most fascinating to me is that while this section of river appears relatively unplanned and natural, it is very much a manmade artifact in the sense that the entire ecology of the area has been shaped—positively and negatively—by decisions made over the past 150 years.
During the past 15 years I’ve spent a lot of time walking in this area, observing the river from the paths along its banks—how it always appeared in small fragments, framed by branches, leaves, rocks, and mud. Its movement is usually so slow and still that the current exists almost as a negative presence—visible mostly in the shifting reflections of trees, branches, and sky. I became fascinated by the way the river seemed both integral to the landscape and barely there at the same time.
Date and place of birth of photographer/s: May 12, 1952: Providence, RI
Website: http://josephgerhard.com
Book link: http://millriverbook.com
Donated by: Joseph Gerhard
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