(Illustrations by Caroline Jenkinson, The Interiors Almanac)
The Interiors Almanac came across Thomas R. Mason’s photography through Instagram, immediately beguiled by the bold and beautiful 1950’s Neon signs that are ever present in his work. We asked Thomas to photograph one of his favourite stores in the Mid West, he promptly replied with photograph’s of Prospero’s, a book store in Kansas City, Missouri.
The store is evocative of Michel Gondry’s madcap video
store in the film Be Kind Rewind, with reams of books and an abandoned type writer and
telephone.
Can you recollect the first time you
picked up a camera and the first photograph you ever took?
My first camera was probably a Kodak
disposable 35mm, which I took pictures of toys and building blocks.
Although, my first real camera was a Olympus XB700 35mm that had a built in
70mm zoom. My mom got it for me at a Kmart during a vacation in the
Florida everglades in 2001 when I was 11 years old. I was getting too
close to the alligators in the swamp with the cheapie cameras. The 70mm
zoom was enough distance between me and them, so I could get some pictures and
not scare the hell out of my parents.
My first real picture was a wild
alligator on the side of a road. I should dig it out and scan it.
Are you a regular customer at
Prospero's book shop?
I've been shopping there for about
six years. I got to know everybody when they broke the world record for the
longest consecutive poetry reading for 120 hours back in April 2010. It's
very much a neighborhood hangout, always characters in there, people playing
chess, arguing about literature, movies, comics, and of course drinking cheap
beer.
It's a very special place, It
couldn't be manufactured, or transplanted.
How old is Prospero’s bookshop?
They started in 1997 across the
street and moved to the current location in 1999. The building is from
1890 and used to be a hardware store, you can tell, there's a lot of relics
still hanging around from that.
Do you have a favorite section of the
store?
Yeah, the front where they display
all the recent arrival's, you never know what they're going to have.
Do you prefer taking photographs at
dusk?
It's the best time to take
photos. The so-called "Magic Hour" There's no harsh shadows or
glare, but there's enough refracted sunlight to compete with all the artificial
light. So you can get cool city photos without the glare of street
lights.
You often feature Neon billboards in
your work, why are you so drawn to them?
I like them because they are handmade
works of art, that are not being made anymore. There was a revival in the
1980s, where artists reexamined their worth. But in modern post-recession
America, not that many people have the money to upkeep them, (even though they
are very energy efficient) and generic corporate chains will never
install new ones, they just print LED signs.
If you're traveling and see a cool
neon sign, there's a good chance it's a Mom & Pop store, since corporate
aesthetics wouldn't put up with something so dated and cheery.
I think in a way flashy Neon signs
are like how flower blossom attracts bees, only at one time it was cars.
