Why Buckeye Lake?
After reading an Ohio State News article describing the emerging 5 different categories of rural America, I wanted to look for a rural state park in close proximity to Columbus that showed signs of a changing demographic of residents. When skimming for information on Buckeye Lake, I came across a reddit post from 6 months ago that described an increasing income gap in the area.
“Buckeye Lake is a weird place you’ve got million dollar homes around the lake mixed in with small run down places and a generally “trashy” vibe,” says Reddit user beeker888.
My plan was to go to Buckeye Lake and take photos of houses, one goal being to observe wealth disparity. But after reading Nunes’ analysis of Roger May’s crowsourced images entitled Looking at Appalachia, I wanted to simply go to a place, compile a collection of photos without looking for anything too specific in order to “complicate” the identity of the Buckeye Lake community.
There’s plenty of generlizations I could have based my subject matter on, such as political divide (there was, in fact, lots of political lawn signage), but I didn’t want that to be the only thing I photographed. My methodology is based on Nunes’ analysis of “Ways of Unseeing”, a photo is comprised of two parts: the content that fills the frame, and the content that is excluded. No matter how ‘unbiased’ the photographer, every photo will contain both. The photos of Looking at Appalachia contain the ‘expectation’, but because the photographers were never prompted to photograph the expected, we also get to see the other side, the ‘unexpected’. I wanted to do the same with my collection of photos.
Out of over 120 photos I took in about 2 hours, the 44 images below contain all the house-related imagery. Photos I didn’t included were either duplicates, photos of boats, photos of yards, cropped in a way where analysis would have been inconclusive, etc. The photos follow the chronological order in which I took them, starting with the North Shore area and crossing over into the Crane Island area.
North Shore
We (Dediè Adissem and I) first walked from the parking lot by the North Shore Boat Ramp to an ice cream shop, Dips on the Lake.
Crossing Crane Lake
We then crossed a small pedestrian bridge to access Crane Island.
Crane Island
The other half of our walk loops around Crane Island.
The beginning of the loop was marked with this ominous signage.
There’s a temperature difference in all of the following photos because I switching my white balance settings. There’s one specific pre-set white balance that I find it easier to photograph with in sunny conditions. This wasn’t directly related to how I wanted to capture the area, nor were there any change in sunniness between the two areas.
At the very moment I stop to take this photo, maybe 15 to 20 yards away, a white, middle-aged man with a long beard, mid-conversation on his phone, calls out to us and asks, “What are you taking pictures for?”
I tell him that we’re students working on a project for class.
He starts walking towards us, “What was that?”
I tell him again we’re students working on a project for class.
He’s still walking towards us at a quick pace, “I still can’t hear”.
I say the same thing.
“I still can’t hear”
At this point he has not slowed one bit and is suddenly a mere arms-reach away, looming over us.
At this point I’m alarmed, I take several steps back, realizing I might need to anticipate the worst.
“I’m hard of hearing,” he tells us, phone still held up to his ear.
I repeat to him once again, we’re college students and we’re working on an assignment for class.
“Are you with the mayor?” he asks.
…No…
“Okay good I don’t like the mayor up in my business,” is what I think he says, but he’s mumbling a bit.
I akwardly laugh and repeat that we’re just students, relieved that we’re excused from the interaction.
And following that interaction, after putting some distance between us and the man on the phone, above is the next image I take.
At this point we’re behind the vacation homes we saw from the bridge on Crane Lake. The houses in the left and center photo sit inland directly across the street from the vacation homes above on the right.
Lastly, we end up in the parking lot where we started. The two photos above were taken while I was standing still in the same spot, the first image with my camera pointed a little to the left, the second with my camera pointed a little to the right.
New vs Old
One way the houses can be categorized is new vs old. More specifically, homes with a newer facade (this includes houses in the process of being built), and homes with older facades.
Characteristics of Old Facade: chipped siding, peeling roof tiles, sunbleached, iron doors/fences, rust, overgrown lawns, sagging gutters/roofs, overall unevenness from the structures settling over time.
Of the homes I photographed, 23 had older facades. Photos 12, 14, 15, 18, 23-25, 27-32, 34-41, 44.
13/23 were one-story homes.
Characteristics of New Facade: White whites, siding is evenly saturated, rectilinearity makes them look crisp. All except for 2 houses have thick white trim around the windows (13, 22).
Of the homes I photographed, 20 had newer facades. Photos 1-6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 33, 42, 43.
1/20 were one-story homes. 7/20 were three-story homes.
In photo 7, we can see that the homes have newer facades because even from across the lake we see bright white trimming and multi-level homes.
There is a nearly even split of new and old facade, meaning a lot of real estate development has been occurring recently, enough to change the appearance of half the area.
The size difference between old vs new facade homes implies newer residents have the money to purchase homes with larger square footage. And not just larger homes, but large multi-story homes that are directly lakeside.
Based on these factors, we can begin to infer that the Buckeye Lake area is undergoing gentrification. The implications for Buckeye Lake residents, both new and old, are inconclusive and would require more research.
[beeker888]. (2024, March 26). What’s up with Buckeye Lake? [Online forum post]. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Columbus/comments/1bocjyl/whats_up_with_buckeye_lake/
Grabmeier, J. (2022, January 13). There’s no longer one rural America – could there be five? There’s No Longer One Rural America – Could There Be Five?; Ohio State News. https://news.osu.edu/theres-no-longer-one-rural-america–could-there-be-five/
Nunes, M. (2017, November 17). Ways of Unseeing: Crowdsourcing the Frame in Roger May’s Looking at Appalachia. Southern Spaces. https://southernspaces.org/2017/ways-unseeing-crowdsourcing-frame-roger-mays-looking-appalachia/
