Garish: Roadside Color Polaroids

by John DeFore, Robert Jones (Author, Photographer), Laura Klecker (Photographer)

Garish: Roadside Color Polaroids is a photography collection unlike any other you've seen. With his choices of an unconventional title and vivid palettes, Robert Jones accompanies readers on a spirited journey through North America's sparsely populated outlands. His deeply personal album of glowing snapshots documents scores of unknown sign painters, billboard designers, and creators of garden statuary, whose brilliance lends visual poignancy to thousands of miles of yearly travel on lost highways. In eighty photographs, Jones celebrates such diverse influences on his work as painter Salvador Dali, photographer Walker Evans, and movie director David Lynch."Garish takes three countries usually thought of as having very distinct identities - the United States, Mexico, and Canada - and smudges their borders," writes John DeFore in his perceptive essay. "[Jones emphasizes] the spirit common to the anonymous, self-taught commercial artists who inspire him not just aesthetically, but in their distance from all that is officially deemed 'art.' "The color is jarring, and Jones makes no apologies for its boldness, nor does he hide behind a facade of "artistic correctness." According to DeFore, this analog collection brims over with "the sentiments of a music fanatic who insists that vinyl records have a warmth compact discs can't replicate." Adds photographer Keith Laban, "Viewing a photograph by Robert Jones can be an intense experience, as though each image is a distillation of the subject; the senses bombarded by intense hue, foreboding shadow, and unsettling perspective."This is an eloquent, heartfelt, and consequential book. It will literally open your eyes.

Genres: Photography

96 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Millions of people have traveled across America’s highways seeing the same roadside attractions, churches, automobiles, neon signs, and other artifacts that photographer Robert Jones magnificently captures in “Garish: Roadside Color Polaroids.” Few people take the time to observe what is they see before their eyes. Ever fewer can “read” what they see and convey it visually within the frame of a camera. Robert Jones has the eyes to seek out what others don’t. In this collection, Jones documents a part the man-made American landscape that is sometimes gaudy, sometimes funny, sometimes surrealistic, and reveals the uniqueness and beauty beneath these iconic American roadside attractions.

[Rain Jenning · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Garish: Roadside Color Polaroids" really made me SEE many of the things I would normally pass over in my everyday commute, or on a cross-country trip. Photographer Robert Jones takes the reader on a tour of North America (the Polaroid photos were taken in Mexico, Canada, and USA), not of her famous sites, but of all the old broken-down artifacts leftover while time is slowly passing them by. And he does it in colors so surreal, they glow. Nostalgia seeps from each image, but they are never sappy, or wallowing in bathos.

Anyone who can make an old motel sign, or peeling garden statuary, or an amusement park shoot-em-up game look beautiful and novel is a true artist indeed. It's pop-art, but without the pretension!

I loved "Garish"! The photographer was probably trying to be ironic when he named it that, because of his garish palette of colors, but he is clearly a visual treasure hunter, prospecting in the unlikeliest of places.

[M Grant · Rating 1 out of 5]

From the hideous cover, which at first glance appears to be a pig being slaughtered, to the massive amounts of blank space on each page, filled with itty bitty pictures of "dying Americana" ie. painted mailboxes, silly store signs and "no entering nowhere, USA" pictures, my coffee table would not be impressed to hold this, unless I was using it to even up a leg... Nice try, cool hobby, not impressed. This is like a hipster wanna be hanging out in Portland. Glad I got to see it for free, if I had dumped cash on this I would probably be writing the author for a refund.

[Michael Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: A celebration of surreality in ordinariness

There's a domain of Americana that few have dared to explore. David Lynch is one of them - Robert Jones is another. There are strange birds, beasts, and flowers - all generated by the hand of man, oftentimes of decades past. Not a visit that will be forgotten.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book!
The images were bright and really told a story.
Such a change from most photography books that tend to preach and make the reader feel stupid while giving them a headache.
These are great, REAL photographs of odd and interesting items and places.

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book brings back hazy memories of a different sort of Americana that is disappearing from our landscape.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only thing garish about this book is its creator. I had the misfortune of some tasteless run-ins over the telephone with one of the gentlemen and I must admit that it completely put me off this book.