Photographer Justin Kimball focuses on the down and out. By Cate McQuaid, December 1st, 2016.
"Kimball, who teaches at Amherst College, traveled to tumble-down neighborhoods in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania, photographing buildings and people in towns apparently deserted by industry. Property values have sunk and abandoned houses pock the landscape, but residents stay, loyal to their communities or maybe too strapped to move. There are lucid stories of struggle and the bonds of family and friends in Kimball’s compelling, necessary images of people. But his forceful photos of buildings and streets dominate. A shallow depth of field pushes imagery to the forefront, like sets looming at the rim of a stage; tight compositions could induce claustrophobia."