First, on the East Coast, Julia Dolan wrote an impressive and thoughtful review of LaPorte, Indiana in March/April '06 edition of Boston University's in the loupe. Here's a selection:
Bitner's groupings of related images - graduation portraits, women wearing pearl chokers who gaze dreamily over their shoulders - at first glance seem simplistic. But it soon becomes evident that Bitner wants us to see the subtle indications of individuality that the sitters could not fully camouflage.
Moving along to the West Coast, Linda Rosenkrantz had this to say in the March 19th San Diego Union-Tribune:
For 30 years, the archive of Frank Pease's studio photographs sat in boxes in the back of B&J's American Cafe, until they were unearthed by Bitner, founder of Found magazine, revealing the faces and fashions (not to mention hairstyles) of a typical Midwestern town from the 1940s to the 1960s.
And in between the coasts, from the lovely Midwest, comes a feature from Gretchen Kalwinski in the Northwest Indiana Times. An excerpt:
It is of note that the images were made public via the enthusiasm of a non-native, a testament to the idea that we oftentimes overlook what is right under our noses. With his outsider's perspective, it seems that Bitner was in a unique position to be able to see facets of the archive that were regarded as everyday by those familiar with them.
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