Developing Economies
When faced with the task of expressing the uniqueness of people as individuals and attempting to provide insight into their culture, I am drawn to what is familiar. In these pictures I hope to show what is universally human, what can be understood by men and women regardless of social context. The beauty and openness of the people of Ameka, Andra Pradesh and Chiapas will stay with me for a long time. I hope my images can communicate some of what has made such an impression on me.
Post-industrial Communities
I explore abandoned buildings amid the waste sites of industrial heartlands. These environments, domestic or commercial, are evidence, both fascinating and disturbing, of a dramatic shift in contemporary urban culture. I am interested in intensity and what I can learn from these places, not what is traditionally picturesque.Climbing up fire escapes or through windows, searching for the evidence of lifestyle and sense of place, I feel a poetry, an anthropological urgency. There is something intimate about observing the things in people's yards, on their porches, under the cinders of their overturned furniture, something unintentionally revealed about individuals and American culture.
Jack Kerouac wrote, "I dig Jazz, 1000 things in America, even the rubbish in the weeds of an empty lot. I make notes about it. I know the secrets".
Though I photograph in a documentary style, these images represent my subjective impressions. I leave to others the politics of environmental and economic concerns. This is not to say that I have no strong opinions on these subjects. However, for now, I am busy with the discovery that the discarded and overlooked can be enchanted through the lens of a camera.
