"Well one of the earliest memories I have was the death of President
Kennedy. Born in 58, I was very young at the time, but in many ways those
memories are like yesterday. I happen to live now not too far from Dealy
Plaza and the idea came to me about a photographic project to use that plaza
not as a ending to a study, but a beginning. Its a beginning of a
photographic study to hopefully put an interesting take on the passage of 45
years."
Mark Blackwell
***
Your idea
sounds fascinating Mark and my personal opinion is that your subject
does speak to the subject of photography. Your idea has ignited
thoughts about similar projects concerning events in each of our respective
locations.
I'd approach it as a "Man on the Street," project and interview people at
that particular location today. I'd ask them if they remember the day
Kennedy was shot and how they got the information about the tragedy that forms
their memories, i.e. from hearing people talk about it? Reading or
seeing film documentaries? Were they there (what a find for your
project that would be).
If you could find photographs of the area
taken 45 years ago and duplicate the exact locations in your photographs
taken today - that would be interesting.
I was sitting in a classroom the day it
happened. When we first got the announcement - a student came running
through the classroom door and breathlessly made the announcement that Kennedy
was dead - no one believed him. We all thought it was some kind of a
sick joke.
My parents were of stiff-upper-lip English stock,
but I found both crying freely when I got home that
day.
