The Bottoms and Franklinton in Columbus, Ohio.

The Bottoms and Franklinton are located just west of Downtown, and are some of Columbus’s oldest neighborhoods. These shots are from a series I have been working on, doing “drive-by shootings.” I have my boyfriend drive me around Columbus, and shoot almost every person I see with a zoom lens from the moving car. I really liked the character of the people on the West side, so that was always a stop on these trips. These people are mostly ignored in Columbus photography, and this area is kind of avoided as one of the “bad” areas, so I don’t know that there is much documentation of this area currently. This is part of what attracts me to this area. The area also is a mixture of houses that are completely trashed, boarded up, condemned, vacant, or all of these things, but also interspersed with these are nicer homes that people are taking care of which may show some progress towards change taking place to make it a better neighborhood.
As for the people of the neighborhood, it’s really mixed. I have mostly seen Caucasian and African American people and most seem to be on the low income side of the spectrum. Some people are nice and seem to like having had their picture taken, some people get angry after I take their picture, and some don’t notice at all. The reason I enjoy the “drive-by” shooting is that I can catch people before they can pose or somehow change their appearance. I catch them raw and unedited, and see them as they are instead of what they want me to see them as. I catch people at 1/4000th second of their life, and all of these things combined are what I think make this work striking.

Leah Fisher