Showcase: Dark Screens, Bright Memories

"Twelve years ago, Carl Weese parked his truck off Route 8 in rural Connecticut and stood in a field. Something peculiar had caught his eye.

"From the middle of the field, Mr. Weese could see the screen of an abandoned drive-in movie theater at the foot of a nearby hillside. It was half-covered in a thicket of overgrown trees. The image of the derelict screen blending into the surrounding landscape intrigued him.

"The following morning he got up early. At dawn he photographed the drive-in, just as the day’s first shafts of light fell upon the white screen and illuminated it.

"It was Mr. Weese’s first photograph of a drive-in theater. Over the years, he has produced hundreds more. “Drive-ins are this stealthily strong feature of American history,” said Mr. Weese, who takes a sociological approach to much of his photography.

"Since 1998, he has traveled to 27 states in search of theaters that convey a story of the nation’s love affair with the automobile and the open road, as well as a sense of the country’s past and present.

"Most of the theaters Mr. Weese has visited are abandoned or deserted. Of the nearly 5,000 drive-ins that were open in 1960, he said, fewer than 500 still function. Development pressures have often contributed to their demise.

" “There’s a saying: there’s only one way to get rich off a drive-in theater, and that’s to sell it to Wal-Mart,” he said."

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Carl also has a photo blog I follow:

Working Pictures