Metropolis USA
Metropolis Illinois is the official home of Superman. Every year they throw a festival that draws about 30,000 fans. Celebrities from the D.C. universe make appearances, give talks, and sign autographs. The biggest fans do cosplay.
On the opening day of the festival in 2023 there was a leak at the nearby uranium enrichment plant. No one in town was officially notified. Residents filed a class action lawsuit in federal court alleging the plant's discharges, which contain uranium, thorium and plutonium, are radioactive and carcinogenic.
The state of Illinois does environmental monitoring at the site and tracks cancer rates in the vicinity, but refuses to release the data to the public, much less the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The legal gears are still turning, but I think it's not unreasonable to speculate that the state would happily release the data if no one was getting cancer from the fairly regular radioactive leaks at the urnaium enrichment plant. It must be really bad for them to refuse. No one's really tied it together in one story, and it hasn't made the national, or even Illinois statewide news.
As a photographer, I had a difficult time figuring out how to approach the festival. I thought it would be easy. A bunch of people dressing up as super heroes in a small midwestern town. Celebrities.
But I really struggled. So I kind of eased myself into it with some straight up portraits.
Everything was on a four or five block stretch of downtown. The street was lined with vendors. On one end was the big Superman statue and the event tent. On the other was a smaller event tent and a stage. In between was corn dogs, deep fried Oreo, barbecue, trinkets, clothes and local businesses.
The problem was both technical and intellectual. The street had very bad light except for a few spots that were okay for about three minutes in the early morning and late afternoon. Intellectually, what is the point of photographing this? I couldn't think of one.
Worse, I had no interest in the visuals. I started out just taking portraits. These are people who like being photographed. That was fine to ease my way into it, but I needed more. I tried the old spray and pray technique, which was kinda fun for a bit.
At some point I realized that not only did they want to be photographed, they wanted to be directed. So I arranged them in some heroic poses. By that point I no longer gave a shit. I just figured I'd do my best to make them look good, to be seen by me like they wanted to be seen.
The temptation with these things, and I think the expectation from the larger photo community, is to approach them with irony and condenscention, something akin to Bruce Guilden. But I think the real story is that they are generally nice people. They seem vulnerable. I think a lot of them were shy in real life and the costume turned them into something else for a weekend. Good for them.
