<\/p>\nWestbound Phoebe Snow, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1964.<\/p>\n
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\n Provided by the estate of David Plowden<\/p>\n
Canadian Pacific Railway steam locomotive, 1960.<\/p>\n
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\n Provided by the estate of David Plowden<\/p>\n
Bill Stramer and son, Todd, Hazelton, North Dakota, 1971.<\/p>\n
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\n Provided by the estate of David Plowden<\/p>\n
Charging Open Hearth Furnace, Inland Steel, East Chicago, Indiana, 1979.<\/p>\n
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\n Provided by the estate of David Plowden<\/p>\n
Village Hardware in Scales Mound, Illinois, 1992.<\/p>\n
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\n Provided by the estate of David Plowden<\/p>\n
Over the span of his career, Mr. Plowden published more than 20 photography books. His prints, created in his basement darkroom, were exhibited at museums and galleries around the country. Some sold for several thousand dollars each at the Near North Side Catherine Edelman Gallery, which has since closed.<\/p>\n
For many years, he stored his prints in large safe-deposit boxes in the basement vault of a bank in Winnetka.<\/p>\n
He moved from New York City to Chicago in 1978 to teach at the Institute of Design, a graduate school of the Illinois Institute of Technology. Commuting from his home in the north suburbs, he later taught at Grand Valley State University and the University of Iowa.<\/p>\n
Mr. Plowden would spend days in the field with his students, imploring them to really see the subjects they would photograph, to walk around town, to talk with people long before they were allowed to bring out their cameras.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole idea was to make them totally aware of what was around them,\u201d he said in the 2011 interview. \u201cThe camera doesn\u2019t make the photograph \u2014 you do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Born Oct. 9, 1932, Mr. Plowden grew up in Boston and New York City.<\/p>\n
Steam trains captivated him as a kid. In adolescence, once he got a camera, he knew he wanted to photograph them. His mother accompanied him on train trips before sending him on voyages alone, beginning when he was just 12. Over the years, he befriended railroad workers and often was allowed to ride with train engineers.<\/p>\n
He also spent a lot of time in Putney, Vt., where his mother\u2019s family had a farm and where he grew to love watching trains and appreciating farm life.<\/p>\n
After Mr. Plowden got an economics degree at Yale University, his uncles set him up with interviews for Wall Street jobs. But Mr. Plowden sabotaged the interviews because, he said, his heart was in photography, and he followed it.<\/p>\n
At a workshop led by the renowned photographer Minor White at the Rochester Institute of Technology, White studied a few of Mr. Plowden\u2019s train photos for several minutes without saying a word. Then, he looked at Mr. Plowden and told him, \u201cYou have the eye of a poet.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Plowden, who was largely self taught, didn\u2019t complete the workshop. He left early to return to his train photos.<\/p>\n
\u201cGo do your damned engines,\u201d he said White told him. \u201cGet them out of your system, or you\u2019ll never do anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 1968, Mr. Plowden was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and later received a research grant from the Smithsonian Institution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn all cases, Plowden sought to produce art that transcended the object,\u201d said former WBEZ journalist Steve Edwards, who wrote an introduction to Plowden\u2019s 2008 book \u201cVanishing Point\u201d and put together an obituary for the family. \u201cHe was interested in highlighting the majestic in the mundane and in asking deeper questions about what we create, what we value and what we discard as a culture.\u201d <\/p>\n
Mr. Plowden chased projects and published books into his 80s.<\/p>\n
When long hours in the darkroom grew to be too much for him to manage, he learned Adobe Photoshop.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad also had a great sense of humor,\u201d said his son, Philip Plowden. \u201cWe\u2019d pull up to a toll booth on a family trip, and he\u2019d put on these funny hats, like a raccoon or a moose, and my sister and I would be mortified. But he was having a great time. Or a neighbor boy\u2019s ball would bounce into our yard, and the doorbell would ring, and he\u2019d go, \u2018Sure, you can retrieve the ball, just give me a sec, I have to turn off our electric fence. We have a pet elephant back there.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to his son Philip, Mr. Plowden is survived by his wife Sandra Plowden, daughter Karen Plowden, sons John Plowden and Daniel Plowden from a previous marriage, 10 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.<\/p>\n
A celebration of his life is being planned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With his camera, David Plowden captured images of America that were fast-changing, even disappearing. The steam-powered locomotives and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-766245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}