One Million Years is Three Seconds

One Million Years is Three Seconds is an experimental documentary about time, place, creation, beauty, order, and the lifelong accumulation of knowledge. The project makes intuitive associations between the domains of four Wisconsin men who avoided the homogeneity of 20th century American consumer culture. Our still photographs are interspersed with pages from mid-century social studies books to examine 20th century technological developments, and the cultural and economic standards whose traces linger into the present. The chaos, complexity and transcendent nature of the four men’s lives appear at odds with the values widely accepted by the general population. Evidence of millions of small, quietly made choices can be observed in their surroundings and visible in our photographs. A composite portrait emerges from the words and images we collected during our ongoing visits over the past decade. Contains more than black-and-white and color photographs and 25 reproductions of vintage schoolbook graphics.