Evoking memories of pot-soaked Saturdays or long drives on the highway, filmmaker and photographer Joe Stevens' side project " Vans and the Places Where They Were" documents the glory of the classic seventies van in an ongoing photo essay dating back to 1996.
Formatted horizontally rather than vertically, Stevens makes scrolling through the images akin to watching a lime green and candy paint parade of Econolines and Chevys travel across the screen.
With an approach that looks not just to the evolving social and economic implications of his subject, Stevens describes how the project surveys "surviving custom and conversion vans across the West and examines the dialogue which exists between a van's design aesthetic and that of its surrounding environment.”
Photographed in and around the L.A. area, the landscape enhances the retrograde effect by hinting at the bygone era of Southern California hippie culture. Palm trees and sixties bungalows add to the mystique of pictures like "Black Tradesman with Orange Stripe" and "Dodge with Duct Tape."
The fleeting quality of these old vehicles, some on their last legs, extends to the medium itself (specifically in this case, 120 film). Says Stevens, "film photography as a visual medium has also begun its slow death. Consequently the goal of the project is to one day shoot the last remaining van on the final frame of photographic film in existence. Then the project will be finished."