American suburbs hold way more mysticism to me than their British counterparts. I don’t know whether it’s because 1: I imagine that every day someone who lives there, leading the same kind of tormented existence as Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, suddenly goes all feral and starts smoking a load of weed and being a badass, 2: that there would be introverted kids, like the guy in Rocket Science, who would be super interesting and teach you amazing stuff while still looking up to you and eventually letting you ride on their coat-tails of inevitable success or 3: because all of the pop-punk bands I love come from and sing about the suburbs (‘Allister – Last Stop Suburbia’ is a lingering nugget of gold, before pop-punk turned in to emo)

Michael ten Pas comes from the American suburbs (I know right!) just outside of Atlanta, Georgia in fact and told us, ‘most of the photos were actually taken within a ten-minute car ride from my childhood home. Because of the rapid population growth the old places I had remembered received new faces and the unoccupied space became filled with new things: strip malls, rows of houses, parks and other elements of the vernacular suburban landscape. The photographs are about the development and construction that took place in the time that I was away from home. They are about being home, but not recognizing home.’

photos Michael ten Pas.

This entry was tagged as allister, american beauty, atlanta, georgia, michael ten pas, photography., photos, rocket science, suburbia, suburbs.