“American Night” is a very conceptual and also social critique work about the plight of the African-American underclass in contemporary America, which was made between 1998 and 2002. In the work Paul Graham juxtaposes over-exposed with colour-saturated photographs. 

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham


“American Night is about the social fracture of America, but it’s also about the landscape of America, from the inner-city to the suburbs to the McMansions. So it’s about seeing and not seeing, about lightness and darkness, black and white and colour, about a state of mind - visibility and invisibility. When people come from a photographic point of view, they tend to lock in on the social-documentary aspect of it, which surprises me.” - Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham


“The first overexposed one was an accident. when I had the print of that, I just left it on the table, gradually looked at it more and more, and realized that it was in fact interesting. Then I started trying to figure out how could I get this effect intentionally – I could overexpose in the camera and maintain it, because I do my own processing. I suffer from the same amount of laziness and procrastination as anyone else, and I remember when I was working in Memphis once I went to a movie in the afternoon. When I came out of the movie into sunlight, my vision was burnt out; there was this blazing afternoon sunshine and I couldn’t see anything, and I realized how much that darkroom accident mimicked this optical burnout, which was about invisibility, and just beginning to perceive things.” - Paul Graham

@1 year ago with 1 note
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#Paul Graham #American Night 

“American Night” is a very conceptual and also social critique work about the plight of the African-American underclass in contemporary America, which was made between 1998 and 2002. In the work Paul Graham juxtaposes over-exposed with colour-saturated photographs. 

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham


“American Night is about the social fracture of America, but it’s also about the landscape of America, from the inner-city to the suburbs to the McMansions. So it’s about seeing and not seeing, about lightness and darkness, black and white and colour, about a state of mind - visibility and invisibility. When people come from a photographic point of view, they tend to lock in on the social-documentary aspect of it, which surprises me.” - Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham

“American Night” steidlMACK, 2003 © Paul Graham


“The first overexposed one was an accident. when I had the print of that, I just left it on the table, gradually looked at it more and more, and realized that it was in fact interesting. Then I started trying to figure out how could I get this effect intentionally – I could overexpose in the camera and maintain it, because I do my own processing. I suffer from the same amount of laziness and procrastination as anyone else, and I remember when I was working in Memphis once I went to a movie in the afternoon. When I came out of the movie into sunlight, my vision was burnt out; there was this blazing afternoon sunshine and I couldn’t see anything, and I realized how much that darkroom accident mimicked this optical burnout, which was about invisibility, and just beginning to perceive things.” - Paul Graham

1 year ago
#Paul Graham #American Night