There are two categories of hotels for me: luxury (that is, noticeably above the standard of living to which I am accustomed, which doesn’t necessarily require five stars) or time-travel (where the accommodations are so singularly of a certain period you can almost squint and see the neon flickering through the blinds).
Birmingham, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (2019) (this is probably the prettiest photo I’ve ever made)
I suppose there’s an invisible third category—the generic it doesn’t matter I have to sleep because I’m exhausted from driving utilitarian spot, which I tend to just call “Holiday Inn” even if it’s not one. They’re clean and feel safe but there’s nothing weird in the lobby to take a photo of and you might not write a poem about them, but like a box of Raisin Bran, sometimes it’s exactly what you need.
Breakfast in bed at the Capital Hotel, Little Rock, Arkansas, Polaroid 600 (2019) (this beautiful place, a grand combo of luxury and time travel, is unfortunately closed)
Plus you’ll still eat great at a third place hotel, if you indulge in one of the great joys of the 21st century: eating in bed while watching TV. One of the best meals I had in 2020 was at a Holiday Inn in Minden, Louisiana, eating Johnny’s pizza in the dark while a Law & Order droned in the background. I had been exploring local parishes all day and was so tired I could barely talk, almost out of film but had been to new long-gone places I would have loved to have seen in their youth.
Like this photo taken that day of the Orient Hotel, closed roughly 1973, in Alexandria, Louisiana, here with SX-70 (2020)
Moon Winx Lodge, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Polaroid Land Camera with Fuji FP3000-B (2016) (after the Crimson Tide defeated Mississippi State, 51-3)
One of the core components of my artistic process is travel. It’s not a side effect or a burden, it’s a method. By using it I find the types of places that make me reach for a camera.
Henry Howard Hotel, New Orleans, Louisiana, Polaroid SX-70 (2020)
Iuka Motel, Iuka, Mississippi, Polaroid 600 (2019)
Somewhere on Highway 61 in Louisiana, Polaroid 600 (2019) (there’s no motel here any longer)
Holiday Inn, Prattville, Alabama, Polaroid SX-70 (2017)
Windsor Court Hotel, New Orleans, SX-70 (2018)
Washington Square Hotel, NYC, NY, Polaroid 600 (2019)
Without going into detail, I think you can guess which of the places above I’ve taken people I cared about, and which one was forty bucks cash and I ended up asking for my money back since my Spidey sense was going off so bad. (I know, I know—the “forty bucks, cash only buddy” should have alerted me).
I AM STILL REVELING in the soft feelings of the beginning of a new year and so I would like to wish you the ability to travel in 2021, with all its joys and strange beds . . . for right now I’ve been staying in Jackson, after a end of the year jaunt through Alabama and Tennessee, just a little bit of hibernation until the winter breaks . . . I’ve been rewatching Community, which brings me a lot of joy while it still gets dark by six . . . I enjoyed most of Miranda July’s latest, Kajillionaire, especially for the tender, glowing presence of Gina Rodriguez (who also crackled in Something Great) . . . so far in ‘21 have been listening repeatedly to No Moon by Black Wing and the joyous thrash of Evil with Possessed by Evil . . . a friend sent me the following tweet with the text “there’s a short story here. At least. Perhaps a novel.”
AS ALWAYS I am gorjusjxn on Instagram (still on a break but lots of Polaroids there) and you can see more of my photography at McCartyPolaroids. Next week I plan to show you some photos from one of my favorite time-travel places, the Rosewood Inn, a motor court in Bryson City, North Carolina.
Oh and let’s leave with a hometown favorite, the still-standing Sun-N-Sand, from 2015 with expired Polaroid film in my old Sun600.