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Rangefinder
Magazine Gary Gladstone’s Search for “It” by
Peter Skinner
Okay, who could read a title like Passing Gas without grinning just a little? Not me, that’s for sure. And while the title alone elicits a chuckle or more, the photographs and anecdotes in this delightful, hilarious portrait of the American heartland really make you belly laugh. Probably, that’s exactly what New York photographer and author Gary Gladstone had in mind when he started a five-year odyssey (albeit an interrupted one because of commitments on the home front) to photograph 60 towns with unusual names, and the people who call those places home. The Passing Gas project had its genesis many years ago when the veteran New York photographer began noticing the funny names of towns while on the road shooting assignments. “I remember thinking, can you keep a straight face if you live in Goofy Ridge? How many people find Romance and then mail a letter from there? Can you buy an ice-cold bottle of Coke in Hell? Who lives in Peculiar?” he says. And what about the title of the book? I’m glad you asked. The town itself is Gas, Kansas, and the local joke is that if you blink while driving by, you’re going to pass Gas! Gladstone’s essays and anecdotes—the stories behind the pictures and how the whole self-assignment was undertaken—are as much fun as the towns’ names and photographs.
It was fortunate that these oddly named towns piqued his interest. They would provide the ideal outlet when Gladstone was searching for a spark to rekindle his creative passion. It’s something most photographers can identify with—the need for a personal project not constrained by the dictums of commercial assignments. Gladstone describes it as a search for “It”—“it” being defined as that sense of creative urgency and passion that drives many photographers to make pictures for a living. “‘It’ is the joy that begins when we look through the viewfinder and lasts to the editing of the images. Unfortunately, ‘It’ often slips away as the business side of the photo business grows,” says Gladstone. Gladstone had refreshed and recaptured that missing feeling on a self-assignment photographing flea markets. He had so much fun that he didn’t want that particular two-week project to end. He desperately needed another mission. It didn’t take him long to identify one—documenting small towns with amusing names like the ones he had seen while dashing from one commercial assignment to another.
Once he had identified his goal, Gladstone began planning the operation along the lines of a military campaign. Initially, he made a list of towns from memory but then turned to a computer road-mapping program to expand the list. “I found names that made me laugh out loud,” he says. “Places like Ding, Dong, Difficult, Boring. I decided I was going to go to Surprise, Toad Suck, and Pig and make pictures of the folks who lived in these charmingly named towns. And there in the remote corners of my country, I was going to get the fun back.” Gladstone’s extensive research involved buying maps, calling local county offices and sheriff’s departments. He found that some of these towns, though still there officially, had been forgotten by local residents, and some had been swallowed by suburban sprawl. “But others were thriving despite the less-than-serious quality a silly name bestows,” he says. A seasoned road warrior whose commercial assignments demanded extensive travel, Gladstone had no illusions about the thousands of miles of road travel this self-assignment would involve. And he also knew that he would need an assistant who had the temperament, personality and technical competence a project like this would require. He called Matt Proulx—“the best freelance professional photo assistant I’d ever worked with”—who, with not much more than a guffaw, accepted the challenge. “He laughed when he heard what I was going to do, said he could use a break from the routine, and agreed to join me,” says Gladstone.
From AAA, Gladstone ordered a map of every state. And he also tapped the DeLorme company, makers of detailed maps that include tiny back roads and other remote byways that would surely lead the way to subject matter. When Gladstone put all the maps on a scale, they weighed 65 pounds! Weeks were spent studying the Internet to find the best routes between towns. The research was exhaustive, but eventually the list of towns all over the country was whittled down to 75. While the towns were identified, there still remained one potential problem—finding cooperative people to photograph in those towns. Gladstone and Proulx would discover that was not going to be a problem—country folk in small towns are very nice people, and the majority they encountered supported his project with hospitality and an eagerness to be part of it. Over five years Gladstone and Proulx made nine separate trips, drove over 38,000 miles through 40 states, and shot 21,000 frames of film. The result was a snapshot of small town folks who share a common distinction—living in places whose names make most people chuckle. While the focus was on discovering these unique small towns of America, Gladstone discovered a few other things. Included in his entertaining commentary are tidbits such as these gems: “Stayed in 72 bad-smelling motels and eight great ones, and ate 360 bad meals and three terrific ones. Number of times I took the Lord’s name in vain in bad traffic situations: 271. Number of times He helped me out: 0. Number of times I revised my assessment ‘This has got to be the world’s worst cup of coffee ever!’: 46.”
He also confesses that what he found differed from what he expected. “When I set out I thought I’d be meeting a lot of cartoon characters in the strangely named towns I’d be visiting. But a funny thing happened: I found that real people live in those places, and they live in my photographs as well. They were people who greeted total strangers with kindness and even warmth. Yes, there were a few who were strange and one or two who were surly, but they were rare exceptions. And even they weren’t cartoon characters,” he says. He also learned how addictive this kind of self-assignment could become. “Each trip was more fun than the last. Looking back on the faces and reading my notes makes me smile. It triggers the sound of voices, the smell of hot, oil-soaked dirt roads, the feel of cool raindrops,” he says. And one other thing: “I learned that New Yorkers are not universally considered barbarous.” One waitress in a small town in Texas announced to all within earshot that Gladstone and Proulx were the first New Yorkers she had ever served. “She then sat down at our table to ask about life in the Big Apple, and we encouraged her to follow her dream and move to the city,” says Gladstone. Other Gladstone observations include: “For those of you going there, Hell isn’t so bad (Hell, by the way is in Michigan); waitresses are sweet but they never marry the right guys; if you’re lost in middle America, people will treat you like a neighbor—they will tell you things like, ‘Turn left up where the church used to be.’” Gladstone and Proulx followed a golden rule to make sure they made the most of their time: drive in the bad light, shoot in the good light. Thus, invariably their images were made in the sweet light of early morning or near day’s end. Their equipment included three Nikon FMs with lenses ranging from 15mm to 300mm, Norman 200C battery-powered strobes, umbrellas, reflectors, Gitzo tripods, stands, CB radio, red Day-Glo road cones and safety vests for shooting on roadsides, a small ladder, a laptop computer and other bits and pieces, and lots of Kodak E100 film. From initial research through final execution, this was a well-planned campaign.
Passing Gas is not only extremely funny with wonderful editorial portraits of many characters, it is also refreshing and encouraging to any photographer who has a personal project in the back of their mind. The unstated message that comes through is this: If you have a project in mind go right ahead and do it. Gladstone’s advice on this aspect is blunt: “Stop kidding yourself. Stop shooting stuff that you think your clients want to see. They don’t want to see what you think they want to see; they want to see what you have in your heart. It’s a scary way to proceed but it’s the only way to keep moving ahead and avoid being stuck in a rut defined by your clients’ needs. Follow your heart. Invest in your passion. Hire yourself, and trust that your ideas are good and will find a home. It takes time. It took me six years and I’m still not finished. The personal promotions, radio and TV and print interviews are exhausting and terrifying. I love every minute of it!” And if you think publishers lined up at Gladstone’s door with contracts in hand, you’d be wrong. “It (the proposal) went to over 50 publishers, some of them three times. I hired two different agents. I sent promotion material to agents just to get agents to offer to take me on. I sent books, in dummy form, to publishers over and over, relentlessly. I got rejection slips that were hand written—not form letters—that were so flattering that they kept me going.”
Howard Schatz, a well-known New York photographer with numerous books to his credit, told Gladstone his secret. “You’ve got to keep sending it out. Make a pile of 40 marketing kits—dummies—and send them all out with return postage (I FedExed them), and when they come back, put them in the other pile—one in, one out. You will see these two piles move up and down like a thermometer. It’s the only action you will see for a long time but it’s encouraging because you can see progress in action. There are 99 publishers out there that don’t want to publish your book and one that does. Your job is only to find that one.” Those words galvanized me, and I did exactly what he said. After all, he must be the most published photographer in the last 10 years,” says Gladstone. Eventually, his doggedness paid off. Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, Calif., saw the book’s potential and agreed to publish it. And the book, distributed throughout the U.S. and in several other countries, has taken off. Gladstone says he is “dizzy just thinking about it, and initial sales are spectacular!” Interviews on radio shows, including NPR, and other publicity have boosted sales, and the book’s rating at Amazon.com has soared. To see the thumbnails of the images, and order the book, go to www.passing-gas.com/. Believe me, this book will lighten up your day! And maybe, just maybe, it will inspire your very own search for “It!” Freelance writer/photographer and author Peter Skinner has more than 22 years experience in the photo industry in public relations, media liaison, corporate communications and workshop production and coordination. His magazine articles and photography have been published internationally and he has co-authored or edited numerous publications and books including the 5th and 6th editions of the authoritative ASMP Professional Business Practices in Photography (Allworth Press). He can be reached at: pskinner@isomedia.com/.
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