Road Trips
Story by Bruce Giffin • Photos by Bruce Giffin's photography students

I must be crazy! I work as a professional photographer all week, teach two Photo II classes, and then venture out in all kinds of weather to shoot pictures with these students to satisfy some craving I carry inside. Unconsciously, we are studying light, form, texture and history. Consciously, we are hanging out, getting out of the suburbs, and becoming better photographers. And friends!

I teach Photo II (B/W) at Macomb College. Three years ago a couple of students dragged me to the Packard plant in Detroit, a 3.2 million square foot abandoned car plant. At that time there were 30 or 40 abandoned cars in there including an old Packard ambulance from the forties that was in pretty good condition for its age. Then one day most of the old interesting cars disappeared. Who knows where they went? We still go there anyway and to many other buildings in Detroit.

I have a twenty-year history of shooting inside abandoned buildings starting with what the kids in Northville used to call "The Tunnels". Actually, it was an abandoned reform school of sorts. I learned how to work a camera there and most of my best work happened there before I knew the "rules". As I progressed technically over time, I started having fewer "happy accidents" and my pictures became stiff and boring. These road trips are an opportunity to grow as a photographer and as a human being! I look forward to them every week!

These samples are a small fraction of the images we’ve shot in these places...Scott Ryan said it best! "I’ve learned more in two years of Road Trips than I have ever learned in photo classes." I couldn’t agree more!

Here are the players:
Brenda Hendricks - Chrysler employee
Geno Bisoni - OCC Photo student
Jessie Erhler - Academy of Art SF Masters student
Keith Emmerich - Chrysler employee and Macomb student
Ken Pasternak - Hallmark School of Photography student
Kyla Hurst - Student
Barry Kreger (Puddy) - Semi retired
Roan Isaku - Lawrence Tech architectural student
Scott Ryan - Macomb student
Vince Verna - U of D architectural student
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