AUSTIN, Texas — John Langmore, an Austin photographer, released an East Austin photo book earlier this year.
- Photographer releases Fault Lines: Portraits of East Austin
- Features photos of East Austin taken between 2006 and 2011
Fault Lines: Portraits of East Austin features a set of photos taken between 2006 and 2011. Langmore said it was his way of illustrating how the city's attempt to segregate Austin using Interstate 35 as a fault line led to the creation of distinct neighborhoods full of culture.
“On the one hand, you don’t want a city to be segregated," he said. "On the other, the fact that those communities were segregated let them develop in their own really special and unique way."
Langmore set out to capture that uniqueness on film and caught a changing community in the process. He said the development boom changed the face of the East Austin community, pushing out many families and businesses he captured there.
"I think 60 percent or more of the places are already gone from 2006 to 2011 to today," he said. "Most of those places are either gone entirely or they changed to something completely different."
The changing community makes his book of photos from the past even more valuable to the few that held on to their places in East Austin. For folks like Marshall's Barbershop owner Eldrick Cooper, it's a short trip down memory lane.
"You look at the pictures from 2006, and it's 2019, and you think man, that memory right around the corner," Cooper said.
Community advocate Johnny Limon wrote an essay about East Austin featured in the book. He said he's thankful for Langmore allowing the community to tell its own story through pictures.
"One of the things I appreciate is when somebody comes into our community and wants to tell our story about how we feel,” Limon said. "That is very rewarding not only for us, but for our next generations that someday may be able to see and read what our community was really like.”
Fault Lines is available online for purchase at Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.