Last Updated on 01/18/2018 by Mark Beckenbach
Follow Danny Wilcox Frazier on the last leg of his shoot for a new book in this documentary short film by Adobe.
At the heart of each documentary work is a personal story that needs to be told. In the case of award-winning photographer and filmmaker Danny Wilcox Frazier, it is a collection of shared stories in seldom seen rural communities. Adobe recently followed him around on the last few days of his shoot for a new book, and put together a poignant, behind the scenes, mini documentary showing how he forges friendships and makes connections to tell these stories.
For four days, Adobe followed Danny around in South Dakota on the last leg of work for his new book, Lost Nation. The short film and its accompanying Adobe Create Magazine feature gives us a glimpse of his travels, from Badlands National Park, through Pine Ridge Reservation, and into small towns in search of compelling stories to tell.
Armed with his trusty Leica cameras, Danny focuses his lens on the dwindling population of the American heartland due to shifting economic situations. Some talk about these rural communities may go around, but not many are aware of what life really is like in these parts. Some might think ‘small towns, small opportunities’. What Danny does is documenting what’s still there, and what the remaining people are doing to get by.
According to Danny, Lost Nation is a visual tale of life in the rural Midwest and the Great Plains. This massive central region of the US once produced so much. But now, its value has diminished to the point where people can barely survive.
“A lot of the towns that I’ve worked in, you know, in 20, 30 years, they’re gonna be ghost towns. I’m just recording these communities before they disappear.”
“The reality is, almost everyone I come in contact with, they want to share their story,” Danny said. And that’s precisely what we see happening behind the scenes. To coax the stories and emotions out of them, he knows he needed to get closer to his subjects. More personal. More intimate. It’s not as easy as he made it seem, but the results are always rewarding.
Head to Danny Wilcox Frazier’s Instagram to follow his work.
Screenshot taken from the video