Photographer Benita VanWinkle stumbled upon a lifelong photography project almost by accident. When her professor asked the class to practice long exposure photography, she went to the darkest place she could think of: the movie theater. What happened next sparked a 44+ year journey to photograph classic movie theaters before the vintage theaters were replaced by modern multiplexes.
Benita VanWinkle (@brvanwinkle), who is now a professor herself, has photographed more than 1,200+ movie theaters, a journey that has taken her to all 50 states, plus Washington DC. The photographer's journey spanning four decades and the transition from film to digital will soon be featured in a photo book, America’s Hometown Movie Theaters: Please Remain Standing.
VanWinkle first photographed her hometown theater for a college class. The historic building, the Carib in Clearwater, Florida, had a Caribbean-themed marquee outside and Egyptian-themed murals on the inside. The theater ended up shutting its doors less than two years after VanWinkle first took a handful of long exposure photos inside.
“These were theaters that were different,” VanWinkle said. “They were unique. They were individual. They were downtown. They were something that looked kind of magical when you're a small child, and you're walking past with your mom or your dad, and you're walking around in a small community, and you think, I want to go there. That's cool. And a lot of those started to disappear.”
While VanWinkle stumbled upon the project that mixes documentary photography with architectural photography nearly by accident, she quickly realized that she wasn’t just photographing old buildings.
“Theaters are the only place where it doesn't matter what your religion, your politics, or your culture is, you can come together and be entertained together and laugh, cry, and empathize with each other,” she said.
The project has brought VanWinkle through the doors of a myriad of different historic theaters. One was once part of the Underground Railroad. Once she interviewed a man whose mother, an usher at the time, wasn’t allowed to work when Gone with the Wind came out in 1939 because the language was ”too salty for a woman.”
The most challenging part of documenting these longstanding movie theaters is the same reason that drew WanWinkle to one in the first place: darkness. When presented with a dark interior, VanWinkle draws on her first-ever assignment inside a theater and uses a long exposure, firing a single flash multiple times during the exposure to light the full interior.
While VanWinkle started her project with film cameras, like her used Nikon F that had previously spent time in Vietnam, she currently uses a mirrorless OM System OM-1, often paired with an 18mm prime lens. The choice is in large part because of the camera’s lightweight size, which makes it easier to handle.
VanWinkle is no stranger to using smaller-format cameras, however. While studying for her degree, her professor told her that she had to use 4x5 film for her project, that 35mm would be too small for architecture. She brought him a photo taken with a 4x5 and one taken on a 35mm, and when he chose the 35mm as the best shot, she continued her project on 35mm film, she recalled with a laugh.
VanWinkle’s travel to movie theaters was often a side quest during trips for her positions at High Point University, often leaving her with only ten minutes to photograph the theatre itself. Other times, she’s spent an hour or more inside movie theatres, taking photos, interviewing the community and, only occasionally, catching a film.
Researching what theaters to visit is often the most time-consuming part of the process, she says, and even then, sometimes she’s driven up to what was supposed to be an old movie theater only to find an empty green lawn.
Earlier this year, VanWinkle printed some images from her very first shoot inside the hometown theater that she hadn’t printed before, and, more than 40 years later, realized in the background was a sign announcing the theatre’s closure.
VanWinkle’s photographs now span more than 1,200 different movie theaters across the US. (She’s also photographed theatres in Canada, France, and Switzerland, but those images are not part of the upcoming book). In many cases, her images have preserved historic theatres that were later torn down or repurposed, though in many others, the iconic one-room theatres continue to endure even in the era of multiplex cinemas.
“If someone had said to me 44 years ago that I would get this book done and spend this long doing it, I wouldn’t have believed them,” VanWinkle said. “In graduate school, everyone laughed at it. This was a time when students were photographing gun control, abortion rights, the use of hormones in food; they were photographing heart-wrenching stories, and they were all good stories. Most people didn’t take it really seriously…but the story that I ended up telling is about how theaters bring communities together and how important they are. Every person that I’ve talked to has a story about a theatre.”
VanWinkle’s book, America’s Hometown Movie Theaters: Please Remain Standing, shares her 40+ year journey and iconic movie theaters across every state. The book is set to be released in September, with pre-orders available now.
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