All images © Jake Stangel
Excerpts from Jake Stangel's series Pontiac Dream are showcased here as part of today's post.
"Pontiac Dream is an open-ended retrospective on America's transitioning identity, as it drifts away from a local mom-and-pop, industry-proud culture and moves toward a more corporately maintained society. The project memorializes a mid-point of this transition, focusing on the county's resplendent and iconic heritage in a way that straddles both currency and nostalgia. With an understanding of this evolution, it's up to the viewer to infer how such rich cultural seeds might sow America's future."
Jake Stangel was born in Montreal, raised on the East Coast, and now lives in Portland, OR. He shoots most of his work on a 4x5 camera, and informs me that he has "an eternal love for film and the wonders of ambient light". He also says that he has cycled across America three times, and the majority of his work, including Pontiac Dream, has been conceived and shot on these vagabond adventures. He also runs a very cool website called too much chocolate, if you don't know it, check it out! He studied visual communication – a combination of photography, marketing, and visual philosophy – at the Gallatin School of Independent Study at New York University. He graduated in 2008 with a B.A.
