Friday Flickr Feature - Abby Hutchison
Abby spent a week this past February exploring the prairies and small towns of Southern Alberta documenting the beauty she found in its emptiness.
What prompted you to begin this project?
I grew up in a small town surrounded by farmland and fields, and moved to a big city this past fall. It’s a transition that tons of people make, and my new surroundings were really beautiful but I was completely homesick for space. I was home for a week in February and decided to use the time to surround myself with lots of the things I missed about being at home. With my best friend as a navigator, we drove down unfamiliar gravel roads, scoped out a number of tiny prairie towns and explored abandoned barns and houses.
Why are you so drawn to small towns and the prairies?
I love the constantly changing but consistent beauty of the prairies through their yearly life cycle. Buried in knee-deep snow in the dead of winter or home to a bunch of clumsy calves in the spring, the prairies never fail to be breathtaking. And small towns have such a unique charm that make them completely irresistible. I think what I love most about the prairies and the places we visited is the strong presence of history that is so apparent. In the city, when people are done with things like buildings or vehicles, they are usually removed or destroyed to make way for something new. But in these communities, there were houses that had obviously been abandoned long ago, boarded up and cars that hadn’t been driven for years - and the people still living there existed with these important reminders of the past instead of trying to modernize them.
Can you tell me about your process for undertaking this project?
There were a few places that I knew I wanted to visit just from living close to them for so long but never actually seeing them. I wanted to focus on the places with the fewest people currently living in them and made a rough outline of places to visit in a day. We really had no idea what to expect and made lots of unplanned stops on the side of the road to explore whatever interesting structure or field we had found. I was really hoping to capture more people in the series than I did, but in lots of the places we visited, we didn’t encounter a single person.
What camera did you shoot the project with?
I mostly shot the project with a Canon Rebel T2, but a few of the images were taken with a Vivitar Ultra Slim & Wide.
Check out more of Abby Hutchison’s work on Flickr
Every Friday internet jogging features an artist, series or something special Chelsee finds while scouring the white, pink and blue treasure trove. We call this the Friday Flickr Feature.
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I’ve always admired Abby’s beautiful and minimalistic photography. I feel that in this specific series she captures so much with so little, and I admire how interesting and appealing she can make snow look, hehe.
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