(This is a short version of the actual book)
In 2023 photographer and poet Thomas Sayers Ellis was the first Photo Laureate of Saint Petersburg. During his one-year tenure, he created a visual story of Saint Pete and its inhabitants. This story is sometimes comical, sometimes dark. But most of all, it sheds an intriguing light on the mechanism of the Florida tourist industry, the people that keep the city running and the people the city attracts like moths to a flame. By using a mixture of black/white and color photography, digital as well as film, and accidental double exposures, Ellis put together an eclectic collection of images that constructs a multi-layered account of his year as SPMOP’s first Photo Laureate.
