Jon Crispin's Notebook

I was in Poughkeepsie on Tuesday photographing at the recently closed Hudson River Psychiatric Center.  I have been there many times and it was a bit sad to know that the facility was closing. / When I was shooting shuttered asylum buildings for my earlier projects, they were all from the 19th century.  Those buildings and their contents came from such a markedly different time which was part of the reason it was such compelling work for me. When I was thinking about my photographs from Tuesday I realized that in the future, someone will look at this photo and have the same feeling.  To our eyes, this isn’t such an unusual scene; fifty from now it will seem truly exotic.