Growing up as a young Jewish boy In Iowa Jeff Jacobson was always drawn to uncovering an alternative history. “I was born in 1946, so I grew up in the ‘50s,” says Jacobson. “It was Eisenhower, it was McCarthy, and I knew that there was an alternative narrative that wasn’t being told, that was different from the official narrative. I remember as a kid I would go to the library and I would get biographies of Indian chiefs. I knew from a very young age that the Indians were not the bad guys. I was kind of the odd one out. I kind of would remove myself into the woodwork to watch. And it turned out to be great training to be a photographer.”
When we heard documentary photographer Jeff Jacobson was giving workshops during the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, we were intrigued. Since the images that are produced at workshops are not often made at public events and otherwise rarely seen, I felt our Originals section, would be the perfect space to publish the images and thoughts of the participants.
Jeff Jacobson’s new book project, “The Last Roll,” emerged from a low point in his life. Recovering from lymphoma and the chemotherapy used to treat it, he faced his own mortality in 2005. Then he faced the end of Kodachrome 200, a medium he’d used for more than 20 years.
