jw lawson FINE ART

Gravel Road, Scott County, Virginia 2007 © jw lawson

I travel to East Tennessee once or twice a year. I go there to visit with family and friends. I go there to recharge and relax. I go there to look at the landscape and absorb the things that I have left behind. With all of this in mind, I create my photographs.

My last trip was full of enough outside influemce that I didn't get a great deal of photographic work done. I was fine with this, seeing that I am currently in the middle of organizing the last 5 years of photographs for a website and other things and adding more images seems unnecessary for now. I also wanted to get away from the gallery work and other things that have bogged me down. I suppose what I was really after was a full on vacation.

I did get a few things done photographically while I was home. This image is one of them. Oddly, this particular photograph wasn't the reason that I was in this particular place. I went into this valley to make images of a swinging bridge and decided to take some context shots for myself. After I returned home I was looking at the collected images and this picture really struck me.

This is a photograph that really drives me to go home again and again. This is the type of tranquil and rural scene that reminds me of where I am from and why I miss it. In the end, I know that I will never be able to go home again to the home that I left. Yet, I do believe that I am creating a new home to return to with my photographs. I feel strongly that my new appreciation for the region of my birth is further fueled by my personal growth as an artist and my physical and emotional explorations. If nothing else, it's a pretty scene.