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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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By EDMUND FOUNTAIN
Published August 26, 2005
To illustrate the concept of "Wide Open Spaces," the sports department and myself decided I should photograph players from all of the Hernando and Citrus County schools in empty fields.
The thought was that since the districts have changed, any team has a chance to dominate. The empty field was thought of in the same way one would think of a blank piece of paper sitting in front of a writer.
The idea is that the teams all have their field, but it is up to them how they will use it.
The feature photographs in the 2005 Hernando and Citrus football sections were all taken with an antique camera called a Crown Graphic, manufactured in the mid 20th century. This camera produces negatives that are 4x5 inches in size, which allows extremely high quality enlargements to be made.
The camera allows the photographer to move the lens in ways not possible with most of today's cameras to produce selectively focused or blurred images.
Unlike modern digital cameras, this requires the photographer to reload the camera after every picture.
The rough-looking edges of the photographs are the result of a type of Polaroid instant film that produces both an instant print and an instant negative at the same time.
The negative portion of the Polaroid allows enlargements to be made.
Using Polaroid film in a 60-year-old camera certainly is not cutting edge or convenient. Many times over the course of making these images I found myself thinking, "Why did you choose to do this in this manner?"
The results, in my opinion, were worth the effort.
[Last modified August 24, 2005, 15:25:11]
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