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Now, from a second interview.
>Blake Andrews: Many of your photo projects have a dated look, for example the book trilogy South Central, South East, Greater Atlanta feels very 80s-90s. I think this is because you sometimes wait several years to organize and show photos. What is your reasoning? Does it take that long to think through them? Or is there something about photos and their connection to past/history that you're trying to tap into?
Mark Steinmetz: The photos in South Central were made in the early 90s and the other two books were made in the mid-late 90s and the 00s - I think the most recent photo in Greater Atlanta was made in 2009. They don't feel that dated to me - just the recent past. Summertime, which is the latest book, dates back to the 80s, but not the other ones. The hairstyles and clothes and cars in Summertime are particular to that time - you can't find them now.
A few of the photos in the books were shown near the time they were taken, either in photo magazines, or literary reviews, or in shows. But these mostly pre-date the widespread use of the internet so in today's terms it's as if they never took place, except for the various people at the time who saw the work and perhaps took something away with them.
There were offers of publishing the work earlier as a book, but mostly everyone wanted me to bring money to the table. I was pretty poor and any money coming my way had to go to rent, food, and film, etc. - I couldn't afford to divert any money to a book and really knew of no one wealthy to ask for some financial help anyway. There wasn't anything like crowd funding in those days.
But the books are better for having waited. The edit is much better and the general quality of printing in photo books today is better. I don't advocate looking for short cuts or for being in a rush - one can always tell.