Here We Are

Ladder, Highway 21, Wisconsin 2003

Sign, Holly Springs, Mississippi 2005

Off and on for the last 5 years, driving and driving and driving, thousands of miles to make photographs I have asked myself about the meaning of what I am doing. Sometimes it feels so clear, despite the ability to bring words to it right away, other times I am lost in it. Maybe there isn't a solid meaning, maybe it is just what I was meant to be doing. Myself and my work are merely a combination of circumstances that have combined to create a whole person with a specific way of seeing and being.

Many of the places I travel are out of the way. Much of the time I go in those directions with ideas about what I will find that are never fulfilled. Mostly, I find things that I never would have seen otherwise. I think this gets to the heart of my work, especially the highway and travel portion of my work. In fact, I think it may be a root in the beauty of Phtography as a medium of expressing ourselves. To be able to bring back something of the world, wrap it into a lot of our inner selves, and give it to the rest of the world. This is bigger than the idea of "a way of seeing", this is a way of working and a way of living.

Much of the pride in my work lies in the mystery that unfolded while I was working. The notion of finding a truly beautiful world, beyond the typical range of site. Economically and politically these places are pushed out of the common conscience, yet here they are. I have gone out and grabbed a piece of them for everyone to see. A piece, albeit, of my own design and fashioned with my own frame of mind, but a piece that the viewer may have never known otherwise. I like to think that I am bringing recognition to my subjects as well as the history that may have brought the subjects into being.