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Sunday, December 09, 2001

Story and photos by Bill Wade

To attempt a photographic essay on the moods of a city -- and not just any city, but Pittsburgh -- is a daunting task. It is destined from the beginning to be in the shadow of W. Eugene Smith's masterpiece on Pittsburgh, which consumed nearly three years of his life in the mid-1950s.

	"Freedom Soars, 1996" (Bill Wade, Post-Gazette)

Since moving to Pittsburgh in 1984, I have been working on my own photographic essay about Pittsburgh. I have been searching to give some kind of clarity, both in aesthetic and sociological terms, to my home, by melding photographs of people and scenes.

I see places that Smith immortalized and have a sense of an inside joke, knowing the importance of his photographs taken almost 50 years ago. It is a great responsibility, almost a burden, to be inspired by a master artist and live where one of the greatest photographic essays was created.

An example of serendipity is the day I was driving through the Hill District and made a detour to go past Pride Street, the scene of a famous Smith photograph. I had to pull the car over quickly to capture workmen demolishing by hand one of the houses behind the street signs. It is one of two photographs (the other is "Dream Street") in which I deal directly with Smith's images of Pittsburgh's street signs and their unusual names.

The small portfolio of photos on this page is a tight selection from the 57 from my exhibition, "Pittsburgh's Spirit" still on view at the Regina Gouger Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University. Some photos in the exhibition deal with individuals we all recognize, such as Mayors Richard Caliguiri and Tom Murphy; others deal with universal themes reflected in our community, such as love, hate, spirituality and community.

The grouping on this page is more symbolic and interpretive and less journalistic than many images in the exhibition. Like Smith, I have photographs that could be symbolic of parts of me. I try to create multiple meanings, to be peeled off in layers, with an important one simmering just under the surface.

Bill Wade is a staff photographer for the Post-Gazette. He teaches at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and previously worked for The Pittsburgh Press. He has been named PA Press Photographer's Association Photographer of the Year three times and has been the recipient of a visual arts fellowship from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.