A PHOTOGRAPHER DOCUMENTS TEMPLES TO THE CINEMATIC ARTS FROM AN ERA BEFORE MULTIPLEXES AND ENDLESS MARVEL-COMICS MOVIES

by David Ensminger

Over the last ten years, I’ve been traveling around the American South shooting photographs for Southern Exposures, a book I’ve been working on that will explore the theme of a sense of place. It’s a subject that has interested me since I migrated to Texas from the Midwest, where I resided until I was 21 years old.

My wife and I often travel both the highways and the country back roads of the South —  dirt tracks and gravel patches — in search of what’s left of communities that have not yet been touched by the ever-encroaching forces of monoculture and gentrification marked by the arrival of big-box, brand-name stores; fast-food restaurants; and bland, corporate sameness. Inevitably, they lead to the erosion of distinctive, local folkways, architecture, and ways of life. I estimate that some 15 to 20 percent of everything I’ve photographed so far was later bulldozed to make way for dollar stores and strip malls.

During our journeys, my camera has captured for posterity an array of local cinemas, which often reflect the architectural history, customs, and economic trajectories of small towns. Back in the early 1990s, for a few years, I worked as a projectionist at the Storefront Cinema in Rockford, Illinois, so I have fond memories of peeking over the heads of audiences from my perch in the projection booth and of coping with celluloid maelstroms whenever big film reels accidentally unspooled, spilling lengths of delicate film onto the floor due to my clumsiness. For me, there will always be something poignant about movie theaters.

Below is a selection of my photographs of old movie palaces, along with some notes about how they appeared to me when I discovered them and what I have found out about them through my research.