A Photo of Breezewood Pennsylvania (2008)
A famous photo of the Breezewood rest area taken by Edward Burtynsky in 2008.This now iconic photograph dates back to 2008 but gained Internet notoriety a few years later in 2012 and then in 2017 after getting its own feature article in the New York Times. "This is one of my favorite photography pics taken mainly because if you’ve never been to the US then this is how it looks a lot of the time", said a Twitter user to great fanfare.
If the photo resonates it’s because it’s relatable, it speaks of the experience people have in America. By simply capturing the way things are in a corner of Pennsylvania, the photo became a powerful critique of how American business and consumer culture shape everyday space. It is a depiction of how “the total situation” weighs on this particular intersection, a live monument of what we’ve become. It’s not hard to agree this is not a place where you would want to be. In its defense, you could say it is quite clearly a place of transience, so-called liminal, but even liminal spaces can be made to a higher specification.
The photo doesn’t name or shine light on the forces responsible for the mess, but they are there. In this tangle of gas stations and national fast food chains there is no guiding principle for what should be where other than profit-guided opportunism. An example of what happens when you put decisions on the invisible hands of the market, the hands we are repeatedly asked to trust with providing for the common prosperity.
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