Galveston is not readily considered a tranquil place by the outside world. It is seen as a destination for frenzied summer fun—scorched flesh and feverish crowds. It is a marvelous aesthetic tapestry of natural beauty and manufactured beauty, substantially peppered with a beauty only recognizable to certain beholders.

This last element, those visual manifestations of the mettle and tenacity that undulate beneath clickbait Houston headlines and a long-past but still remembered reputation of undesirability, is where the true enchantment of the island resides. Beyond the chaos, a rugged undercurrent of quiet strength has buoyed Galveston through unthinkable destruction, multiple reinventions, and a modern renaissance.

It is almost entirely indiscernible except in the affection of its residents, but at times it can be felt in a quiet corner of an alleyway, rustling through the brush of the east end marshland, and in the photography of Jason Lee.

“I knew once I’d done some brief initial driving around the island that there was more to [Galveston] than just what’s it’s known for,” says the film photographer, actor, director, and producer.

“The idea is to present things simply and as they are. And in this case, it was important that I present a broader view of the place.”

Galveston Historical Foundation (GHF), demonstrating an insightful forethought to document history as it is being made, commissioned Lee in April 2020 to produce a contemporary collection that would reflect the island during an unprecedented time. He arrived to produce the project in November, when the island atmosphere was dually assuaged by low season and the pandemic.

 

“This was when we were deep in lockdown,” Lee explains. “And the island was especially attractive in its resultant emptiness. Gone at the time was its tourism and crowds and left for us was a kind of empty former life. It was a great time, and with a quietness that I felt extremely attracted to.”

The emotional timbre of Lee’s images was significantly influenced by the timing of his visit, but in capturing the calm of 2020, he was able to reveal the raw, unadulterated, and often unexpected beauty of the city.

At first glance, it appears to be an “empty former life,” and some of Lee’s images of Galveston introduce themselves with a twinge of shock value in their mundaneness. But closer examination divulges the surprising essence of the island’s allure, the gritty reality of a stoic stillness that can only come from centuries of survival, undisturbed by time or adversity.

Prior to visiting, Lee made a conscious decision not to learn too much about the island. “When I’m out there roaming, I’d rather be surprised,” he says.

“And so even though the Galveston photographs were ‘commissioned,’ I approached going there as I would anywhere else. I’d heard of Galveston, of course, but had never thought to make it far enough south to meet the island during my many mainland Texas explorations over the years.”

Known for his roles in beloved 90s cult classic films and the Emmy Award-winning series My Name is Earl, Jason Lee first began working with photography when he was a professional skateboarder, prior to pursuing an acting career.

“With my skateboard company, Stereo Skateboards, we were using Super-8 film cameras in the early 90s to [shoot] our skateboarding films,” Lee says. “But I never really considered myself a photographer, and certainly not a filmmaker, but I knew I liked the visual arts.”

He retired from professional skateboarding in 1995 after making his first movie. “I was really just focused on acting. And then in 2002, while acting in a movie, I rekindled my love for image-making, having at that time fondly and newly looked back on all the work we’d done in those earlier skateboarding days,” Lee recalls.

“I started picking the brains of the camera people on that movie set and that got me excited about all things film.” At that point, Jason began buying film cameras and experimenting. He says he was “hooked” and subsequently dedicated himself to the artform and to becoming a “real” photographer.

His work has since been featured in a number of books, magazines, and solo and group exhibitions across the country. “I’ve never looked back, all these years later,” he says.

In 2017, two years after Lee moved to Texas, he embarked on a four-month road trip across the Panhandle, slightly east, then down through central and west Texas. Selected photography from the journey was compiled into a book entitled A Plain View and published in 2018.

It was the debut release of Film Photographic, an Instagram film community gallery and photography book publisher founded by Lee in 2015. Despite this triumph, photographing Texas poses a unique dilemma: It is entirely possible to travel five thousand miles within its borders and still not make it to one of the most photogenic cities in the state.

 

“Then in November 2020, I found myself driving to this mysterious place from my [now] home in Los Angeles, all because of GHF’s interest in my photography,” Lee says.

“I absolutely love Galveston. It’s one of the most quiet, kind of standstill, and most unique places I’ve ever had the good fortune of roaming with my cameras. There’s a great sense of story and place there.”

Lee continues, “I would like to offer here a big thank you to GHF, the folks there were all fantastic. I’m happy I went and finally got to see such a wonderful place in Texas that I may otherwise never have gotten to. If nothing else, these photographs are an extension of the mainland Texas that came before them. Seemed a fitting project and was a wonderful experience.”

When Jason first arrived on the island, he had no measurable time frame or route planned for his visit nor any expectation of what he would find and capture, an unrestricted approached that tinges his photos with an element of curiosity and wonder.

“My approach, if I have any at all, is to be spontaneous,” Lee explains. “It’s really the subject, or the scene, that decides the photograph. I’m just a tourist, really; an outside observer. I tend to let the subject be what it is.”

He maintains, “Of course, I’m drawn to certain things, and to a certain feeling. I suppose I want to tell a kind of ‘American story,’ but overall, the idea is to let the subject lead and to let things just kind of unfold organically. You do certainly have to have an appreciation for what you’re photographing, however.”

Lee was in Galveston for a total of two weeks with his good friend, fellow skateboarder, and longtime film photographer Raymond Molinar. “He and I have been on a few photo road trips together over the years and I knew that it would be great to have him on the island with me, and that he’d appreciate it,” says Lee.

“And it was nice, too, to have him make some behind-the-scenes photographs while I was doing my thing.” The first two nights, they stayed at the historic Menard House on 33rd Street. “Realizing it was undoubtedly haunted,” Lee attests to the surprise of no one who lives in Galveston, “we opted to move elsewhere. I knew I’d need to be there at least a week or so in order to take enough photographs to make a book, but I kept things fairly open-ended. As I said before, my whole approach was spontaneous, but I knew that I wanted to explore as much of the island as I could and see its contrasts and its variety.”

For A Plain View, he used strictly 4x5 color films, but for some of the Galveston photographs, Lee opted for ease and mobility. “I wanted also to have a smaller camera around my neck so that I could roam more freely the island’s amazing alleyways and such and to shoot, when it felt appropriate, a bit more freely and quicker,” he says.

“So, the photographs I made in Galveston were with both 4x5 and 35mm films.” Film photography requires a much more careful and deliberate approach than its digital counterpart. The number of shots available to the photographer is finite, and the use of film cameras requires extensive technical knowledge of the equipment.

Once mastered, however, analog photography permits a more authentic artistry. Film offers the ability to create nuanced effects like overexposure and light refractions that are real-time, resulting in an image that is truer to the captured moment than one that is digitally manipulated during processing.

The meticulousness of the medium seems well-suited to an artist whose creative resume ranges from the athletic to the visual but hinges on personal expression and a preference for solitude. Jason likens skateboarding to photography in that they are both individual endeavors.

“I could sort of ‘reinvent’ my skateboarding with photography,” he muses. “And where I tend to roam with my cameras, and where I like to end up, and what I like photographing, it tends to be quiet. I like life there, in these quiet American places. And it’s just you and your camera.”

“For me it’s about what’s there,” he continues. “I’m always interested in, ‘Why is this or that still standing and what does that mean, and what does it look like against other things?’ But I’m also very interested in how the whole of a place looks, especially in a case like this when I’ve set out to explore a place from its downtown to its outskirts.”

For Jason Lee’s Galveston, the finished product is a stirring encapsulation of island life that staunchly refuses to spoon-feed beauty to its observers, but like the city itself, beckons instead for a closer look.