In March 2016 we were at the Green Valley Theater in Watsonville watching a forgettable action movie. After the credits rolled and Tom began heading out Marianne scurried to the top of the auditorium to make a photo of the big screen. She was thinking of capturing an image as a homage to Hiroshi Sugimoto, a Japanese photographer who for 40 years has worked on a series of images shooting a whole movie theater in a single frame. This night turned out to hold some amazing excitement for both of us because as Tom exited the theater two police officers in full riot gear approached him and said, “Would you step outside please. Did you hear any gun shots?”. Tom went back to retrieve Marianne who didn’t understand the urgency and continued to take her tiny iPhone images. Finally, Tom stressed the urgency to Marianne who reluctantly left the empty theater. As it turns out there was a gang shooting in the parking lot that night but for Marianne it was the beginning of a new book, Big Screen.

Photographing only the big screen seemed a bit unimaginative so Marianne expanded the project to include interior architectural details including chairs, walls, lighting and exit signs. And we dedicated a special section to The Rafael, the movie palace in San Raphael that we both have a very long-term relationship with.

Best of all we brought Lucky to the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs. He slept quietly through most of the movie and then the three of us had some good photo fun.

October 2017