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Canadians to get a good look at Springfield and its people

Photos of Springfield displayed at major Canadian museum

Canadian photographer Terence Byrnes is looking for the identity of this young man, snapped near downtown Springfield in 1966.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Photos of Springfield by Terence Byrnes are going on display at a major Canadian museum.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 2:34 PM Friday, January 29, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — If you’ve ever followed the signs, Wittenberg University goes to great lengths to divert prospective students around, well, Springfield.

That part of Springfield.

You know.

So let’s just hope no students in the greater Hamilton area — that is, Hamilton, Ontario — are on the fence about attending Witt.

The Art Gallery of Hamilton is opening a new photography exhibit this weekend that shows off the people and parts of Springfield that are hidden in plain sight.

For Canadian photographer Terence Byrnes, who’s been shooting the corrosion on Springfield’s section of the Rust Belt most every summer since 1966, the show is a major turning point in what’s become a lifelong project.

After all, until a show in 2002 at our own Springfield Museum of Art, Byrnes hadn’t let anyone see any of the thousands of photos taken locally.

Now he’ll exhibit 19 photos at a major Canadian museum.

“The more and more time I spend with them, the more moved I am,” said Melissa Bennett, curator of contemporary art at the Art Gallery. “They’re very intense pictures.”

Three years in the making, the exhibit is culled from an archive of 10,000 photos of Springfield taken by Byrnes the same way each summer — by walking up to people and just asking.

“When I first saw them,” Bennett explained, “I thought immediately of Depression-era photography in America.”

Byrnes, who discovered Springfield 43 years ago while attending Antioch College, doesn’t claim to be a documentary photographer.

As the photos move to the next level — a coffee-table book is still in the works — he’s ready to defend his images.

At a recent Wittenberg forum, he was accused of exploitation.

“I know for sure one of the things I’ll be charged with is misrepresentation or exploitation,” said Byrnes, who lives in Montreal. “That’s going to come up increasingly.

“It’s not documentary. It’s fully cooperative with the subject. It is what it is.”

If the reaction of the people who framed the photos in Quebec is any indication, Byrnes has one whopper of a photography show on his hands.

“They said that the pictures had caused a lot of discussion in the back rooms of the framing shop,” Byrnes said. “It was a combination of curious interest, awe and shock.”

Do you know this young man?

It was his first trip to Springfield.

His first roll of film.

Terence Byrnes snapped a photo (see it at left) of a boy wearing an iron cross in Springfield clear back in 1966 without ever learning his name.

“Sometimes,” Byrnes said, “boys who are 10 years old follow me around. You say hello and they ask your name. That’s the way it was with him.”

The image has endured, and will be included in Byrnes’ exhibit at the Art Gallery of Hamilton in his native Canada.

If you know who he is, drop a line to reporter Andrew McGinn at amcginn@coxohio.com or call (937) 328-0352.

Last year, Byrnes finally learned the identity of a girl, Terria (Brown) Pendleton, he’d shot during the same outing.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.

How to go

What: “Springfield, Ohio: The End of the American Road,” photographs by Terence Byrnes

When: Saturday, Jan. 30, through May 24, with an opening reception from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 31

Where: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 123 King St. W., Hamilton, Ontario; hey, it’s only a 7½-hour drive from Springfield, and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame is just a couple of blocks away.

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