Springfield Terminal #70 (Ex-Erie Lackawanna #2401), Conklin, New York 2 - 1990

James Welling made this gelatin silver print of a train in Conklin, New York. I'm really intrigued by the almost clinical way Welling approaches this subject. He’s playing with documenting and observing, but also, I suspect, with memory and a lost America. I wonder what it was like for him to stand there, camera in hand, focusing on this hulking piece of machinery. There's a starkness to the image, a lack of sentimentality, yet it evokes so much. Think about those stark contrasts, the way the train seems both solid and spectral. The details are crisp, but they almost dissolve into abstraction, a collection of tones and textures. It reminds me of the New Topographics photographers, who found beauty and mystery in the mundane, everyday landscape. Artists are always in conversation with one another, aren't they? Welling's work is a reminder that beauty can be found in the most unexpected places, and that the act of seeing is always an act of interpretation.