In the summer of 1971 Frank Gohlke moved with his wife and youngdaughter from Middlebury, Vermont, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hisvocation as a photographer had begun four years prior, but he had yetto define the subject that would occupy him for the next 45 years: thelandscapes of ordinary life.The three bodies of work brought together in Speeding Trucks andOther Follies were all made between Gohlke's arrival in Minneapolisand the end of 1972 when he began photographing grain elevators,a project that first established his renown. In different ways theseearly series obliquely describe Gohlke's process of adjustment to hisnew surroundings.The Speeding Trucks photos of the first section began whenGohlke noticed how the shadows of the elm trees that once linedmost Minneapolis streets were momentarily materialized on thebodies of passing trucks. The travel trailers in the second section wereall found in a Minnesota State Park on one of the family's infrequentcamping trips, while late-night rambles through Gohlke's Minneapolisneighborhood led organically to his series of dramatic night picturesin the last section. Notwithstanding their various subject matter,Gohlke's photos in this book collectively perform a kind of timelessalchemy on the everyday stuff of visual experience.Looking at these photos, it's hard not to believe that things reallylook like that; but we know they don't. In the interstice betweenthe picture's testimony and the evidence of our senses is where myphotos reside. Frank Gohlke