Night light

Daniel Freeman follows the well-trodden path of photographing American commonplace but with his own unique take by capturing small town Main Street at night.  None of the seventy-eight photos, all taken since 2010, have a location caption so this makes the book a good visual survey of what small town USA looks like after dark without pedestrians and traffic. 

Actually Main Street is alive with colour and detail because there is so much light from shopfronts, street lights and the occasional traffic light. The amount of detail in those photos is amazing, it might be night but there is enough light to reveal the architecture of buildings fading into the dark sky and at pavement level shops and eating places clearly reveal what's inside. I thought the photos that worked best are those taken across the street so the various retail units become a  left to right strip or taken diagonally at a street corner with the buildings fading away in perspective. For a change of pace from Main Street, there are some photos of abandoned gas stations and vehicles. 

There is one thing that really enhances this photobook: the paper and printing. The back of the book imprint page says the paper is Magno Satin, which is a silky smooth matt art paper, perfect for printing with a very fine screen (I'm guessing 300) to bring out all the precise detail Freeman captures with his camera.