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Periodically I have photographed diners since 1987 (with the exception of the image of The Kristi which I made in 1982). Diners have been disappearing at an accelerating rate during the past 25 years. Images of abandoned diners increasingly enter this portfolio.

My favorite television was that of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Westerns (especially those made in Black and white), Route 66, The Twilight Zone , and the Fugitive were my favorites.These shows oftened featured inviduals who drifted from town to town, in and out of peoples lives, set in stark, lonely environments...people on the fringes of society.

Overnight rairoad trips to summer camp in northern New York (Tanager Lodge; 1959 and 1960) and in northern Wisconsin (Camp Nebagomen; 1961 and 1962) further increased my appetite for images of the American small town at night.

I developed my strongest connection to diners while at boarding school in eastern Pennsylvania (1963 - 1967) where I ran cross country. Runs through the streets and fields of small New Jersey towns on brisk October afternoons were followed by an evening stop at a diner... a hamburger, fries and a chocolate shake for about a dollar. I had a typical school boy infatuation with a girl at home ...I would imagine sitting with her at that diner late in the evening. One night just after Thanksgiving (1964) I left school for New York City hoping to be expelled and sent back home. I never was expelled and I never gained that young lady's attention.

There is something both empty, hollow, and haunting as well as cozy, and inviting about the diners I visit... I see a little of both Edward Hopper and John Baeder in each of them.