Is America vanishing before our eyes? This morning’s guest speaker, Mr. Holt Webb thinks it is.
And he’s doing something to preserve the memory of what America was by documenting what he sees in his travels.
How is he documenting this memory? He attended Georgia Tech and University of Georgia but is a professional photographer and writer at heart. He started as a wedding photographer, moved on to portrait photography, but found his ‘true love’ is photographing architecture - architecture in the broadest sense of the word…’the architecture of life’.
Webb is concerned enough he embarked upon this ‘photographic journey’ of ‘vanishing America’ eight months ago. He records and documents, with about $100,000 worth of photographic equipment, people, places, ways of life, old technology, crumbling buildings, and deserted towns partially reclaimed by the blowing sands of time. He has seen and photographed everything from original 100 foot tall, cypress trees, on ‘Billy’s Island’, in the Okeefanokee swamp to the windswept salt flats in Mission Bay, California smothering deserted towns.
He figures this project will take 2-5 years traveling America, in his ‘biodiesel RV’, that runs on vegetable oil, where he lives, sleeps, writes ,works in his dark room and writes on his computers.
Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute are very interested in his project. He plans to use his photos, videos, written articles, and interviews with people he meets along the way and turn this information into gallery exhibitions, written articles for magazines, and dazzling ‘coffee table books’. But his ultimate goal is ‘recording the vanishing face of America’ for the generations to come.
Talking with Mr. Webb, he said he recently gave a presentation at a school and showed a photo of a WWII ‘goony bird’, two propeller aircraft at a government airfield in Arizona. The students did not know what a propeller was. They only knew about jets.
For more information about this project see www.vanishingamerica.net or holt@vanishingicons.com.
Division Lt. Governor Karen S. Losin presented the Peachtree-Atlanta Club a check for $2500.
It was the Club’s portion of the $11,000 net profit for this year’s Gala. Many thanks to Ronni French, Yvonne Conway, and Jerry Hitt for their committee effort.
Burt Manning said we have interclubs scheduled for Alpharetta and Roswell. More information coming.
Board will meet 7:30 am this Friday, March 14th, at J. Christopher’s restaurant on West Peachtree Street. Everyone is welcome. Young Child Priority One project and Nominating committee for next year’s officers will be discussed.
Ronni French said the Fulton County Assistant D.A. made a presentation last week. 10 students were in attendance. April 15th has been set for the Lockheed tour.
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