Diane Moca: Welcome to TalkingCities from TalkLab, I'm Diane Moca and I'm with Scott Strazzante. He is a photographer extraordinaire for decades and the publisher of this wonderful book, Common Ground. And it is more than just a book of photos, it's really a story about a farm, about America, right? Scott Strazzante: Exactly. Diane Moca: How did this come about? Scott Strazzante: So I was working for a newspaper in south suburban Chicago, and I was given an assignment to go off for one hour to photograph this couple Harlow and Jean Cagwin who were raising Angus beef cattle. And it was part of a longer project on people raising animals in Homer Township, which was then a pretty rural part of the Chicago area. Diane Moca: And when was that? Scott Strazzante: That was 1994. And so I photographed Jean Harlow for it was kind of like Gilligan's Island, it was like a three hour cruise. I photographed Jean and Harlow for three hours. And then on my way to my car, I just kind of said, "Hey, can I come back and photograph you again?" And they're like, "Sure, that'd be fine." So on my off days, when I would get a chance, I would visit and stop by and I would photograph Jean and Harlow. And for the first two, three years, I probably visited maybe four or five times a year, and most of the times it was just a social visit where Jean and Harlow would stop or they'd come in and we'd sit at the kitchen table and just talk. Diane Moca: But you weren't getting paid for this? Scott Strazzante: No, this was a personal project [inaudible 00:01:18]. Diane Moca: And you didn't have a vision of a book or anything? Scott Strazzante: No, it's like I worked at the time for a paper that didn't really give me a lot of really media assignments, so I was looking to do something that was interesting. And being a city boy from Chicago, stepping foot on this kind of rundown ramshackle farm, it was just like a photo journalism's dream. And so I just started photographing Jean and Harlow and then in four years later in 1998, I moved to a newspaper in Joliet, The Herald-News, and that was a great photo newspaper and they not only expected you to do photo stories, but you had to self generate them. So when my photo editor asked if I had any story ideas, I'm like, "I have these farm couple that I'm photographing." He said, "Okay, well go do it." And so then I pretty much started photographing Jean and Harlow almost every week, I would go on Mondays, on my off day from work, and I was a single dad at the time so when my kids were in school, I would sneak out on Mondays and go to the farm. And so then I photographed Jean and Harlow up until 2002, when they sold their land to a subdivision developer, and their final day on the farm was July 2nd, 2002. Diane Moca: But during that time, that wasn't all for the newspaper? Scott Strazzante: No. So it was an interesting arrangement that I'd made with the newspapers I'd worked with because I was actually at three different newspapers from 1994 to 2002. I was at the Daily Southtown and The Herald-News and then I went to the Chicago Tribune. So every time I got to a new newspaper, I'm like, "Hey, I have this photo story that's a personal project and if you want to publish it, you can, but I want to retain ownership of the images." And so they agreed to that, which was lucky. Diane Moca: So bits and pieces of this story got out there - Scott Strazzante: yes. Diane Moca: - but not really in total. Did you always have in your mind that this is going to be a book? Scott Strazzante: I think near the end of the farm project, I thought that I would do the farm book because the story started out as just a story of a family farm. And then as Harlow and Jean who, when I met them, were 71 and 62. So by 2002 Harlow was pushing 80 and Jean was in her early 70s, so it became a story then of aging. And then the disappearing family farm, because a lot of the farms in that area were being bought up by subdivision developers and turned into big sprawling, high density housing developments. And so then when Jean and Harlow decided to sell their farm, with a little bit of pressure from Harlow's siblings, I think they sold the farm in 2001. And they continued to raise their cattle for about a year as the subdivision was built around the farm, so it was kind of the shrinking farm. Diane Moca: Was it hard on them? Scott Strazzante: Yeah. Diane Moca: Could you see, in their faces, the aging progress the way you see a president age - Scott Strazzante: Yes. Diane Moca: - when he takes office, as this farm was shrinking and slipping out of their grasp? Scott Strazzante: Absolutely. Jean and Harlow were the hardest working people I've ever met in my life and they didn't want to leave the farm, they loved it, but the writing was on the wall. And especially with Harlow's three siblings who were like, "We're getting up there in age and we need to monetize this asset we have." And so it was sad that they left, but they also got a multimillion dollar payday out of it, so it wasn't like it was horribly sad. And they ended up actually moving to a place called Ashkum, which is south of Kankakee and they bought another farm and built a new house there and then lived in a house while they leased out the land. And Harlow spent 10 years retired, he unfortunately passed about 10 years ago, and then Jean just died last year so this book was at the time dedicated to Harlow, he was gone by the time it was published. Diane Moca: That's only half of the book Scott Strazzante: That's only the half of the story. Diane Moca: It's called Common Ground because you coincidentally happened to meet somebody who was the other half of the common ground, someone who moved into the subdivision, how did that happen? Scott Strazzante: So in 2007, I was giving a talk to a photo class at College of DuPage and it was teenagers, but also adult photographers, and I showed about a 50 photo story on the farm. And at the end, I showed a couple photos of the subdivision, the model homes in saying, "Someday, I might want to do a story on the subdivision, but I haven't really gotten around to it yet." So the lights went up and the teacher asked if there were any questions and a woman raised her hand and said, "Hi, my name's Amanda, I live in that subdivision." I'm like, "Pardon?" She's like, "I live in that subdivision." So she said, "Why don't you come visit on Saturday? It's Easter, we're having Easter egg hunt for all of the children in my cul-de-sac." And so I just kind of showed up and I was able to introduce myself to the whole community and say, "Hi, my name's Scott. I work for the Chicago Tribune and I did a story on the land that was a farm here before it became a subdivision. And if I just kind of show up, is it okay if I photograph your children?" And everyone said it was fine, so just a creepy middle aged man, white guy could just show up with a camera and just photograph daily life. But then it took a while, well, actually, didn't take a while. It took about two visits to realize that the Grabenhofer family was the people I wanted to focus on. Diane Moca: And that was Amanda's family? Scott Strazzante: And that was Amanda and her husband, Ed, and they had four children, Ben was the oldest and they had triplets, Aidan, Caitlin and Abigail. And they had two dogs, one looked like a cow, so it was like this perfect suburban family. And my hopes was they would maybe have a cow salt and pepper shakers that would somehow tie this all together. But on my second visit, I photographed Ben, the oldest son wrestling with his cousin CJ, and he had a jump rope and they were kind of playing around. And when I went home that night and looked at the photos I had taken, it reminded me of a photo I'd taken years earlier of Harlow wrestling with a calf that had gotten loose. And so it was that point I said, "Well, maybe I can tell this story with Diptic or pairings, comparing and contrasting life on this piece of land." And once I did that, it was easy because every time I'd go to the subdivision, I would make a photo that reminded me of a photo I'd taken on the farm. And then I did an aerial that I had to match an aerial from before and it just was almost out of my control. I think it's because I'm the same photographer that I was back then, but it was really simple for me to find these moments. And I think we're all kind similar in our everyday activity, and that's where common ground came in, not only are they living on common ground, but as just going through daily life, even though one was a group of cattle farmers and one was just a suburban family, their life's really kind mirrored each other. And so just, for me, was this amazing kind of project that came along at the right time and I really enjoyed making the Diptic. And so my first visit to the subdivision was in April of 2007, and by February, 2008, I had four pages in National Geographic on the project. So definitely once I got the Diptic idea together, it was something that people were like, "This is wonderful." And then the project, it's become a book, a company, Media Storm, did a video on it, CBS Sunday Morning had me on and highlighted the project. And so I worked on it really hardcore from 2007 to about 2010, at that point, once again, after the eight years on the farm, I thought it was a complete thought. But then in the middle about around 2016 to 2017, Amanda and Ed decided to get divorced, and so Amanda said that she was going to stay in the house until the triplets graduated high school. And that was in June of 2021. So I've now moved to California and been in California for the last eight years, but I came back and I photographed, in June, the graduation of the triplets. And then they decided to sell the home and then Amanda and her partner, Josh, who they live together now, I went back at the end of October, early November and photographed them packing up and moving out. So from start to finish, it was 27 years, but there were some gaps in between, but it mostly just kind of kept going on and on and on. And thankfully, not for them, but for me that they moved out of the house because it gave me this reason to say, "Okay, now it's a complete thought, it's finished." Diane Moca: And the 27 years, I read in the book, during that time, millions of acres, close to 27 million acres, have disappeared thanks to suburban sprawl. Scott Strazzante: Yes. Diane Moca: And most people think of that and they get sad, but you introduce another idea on the book that Amanda was grateful to Jean and Harlow. Scott Strazzante: Yeah. So it was pretty amazing while we were doing the video, we had Harlow and Jean come back to the subdivision to do interviews. And so they did the interviews actually in the Grabenhofer's garage and so I was able to introduce the Cagwins to the Grabenhofers. And Amanda was able to thank them for pretty much giving up their farm so that they could have a wonderful home to raise their children in and it was really a special moment. Diane Moca: So there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it's not necessarily all doom and gloom. If farms go away, if people have a home that they maybe wouldn't have been able to have and some space in a beautiful place. And you are now back here in the Chicago area where you grew up. Scott Strazzante: Yes. Diane Moca: What brought you back here to do the debut of this book here at TalkLab? Scott Strazzante: So earlier in the year, I'd also made of a visit back to Chicago and Jimi Allen, who owns Bureau Gravity, the amazing Jimi Allen, and he said, "Hey man, can let's get lunch." I'm like, "I'm catching a flight later today." And he's like, "Come on, just come over here for 10 minutes." So I ended up coming over, spent two hours reconnecting with Jimi, and I saw this beautiful building. And I'm like, "Hey man, what if I had a gallery show here, a Common Ground show?" He's like, "Let's do it." And so a friend of mine's daughter got married and they hired me to photograph the wedding last weekend and so I had this week planned out for the last year and so then we just figured out a date and just all came together. Diane Moca: Well, we're glad to see you here and we're especially glad for this book, it's beautiful and I love the sentiment in it and how we all share those same thoughts and feelings about family and growing old. And you've really captured that here. Scott Strazzante: Thank you so much. No, it's been an honor. Thank you.