in-absentia photographs
Slowly, over time, this section will grow. Its very much a side project, but gains meaning every time I go home, taking new shots. Check back every now and then or so for more info/pictures.
This project also has become part of a collaboration with Chicago based artist Brett Ian Balogh. See http://www.in-absentia.org/.
As of 2008, I’ve lived for eighteen years in New York, and eighteen in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. Over the years, when visiting back home, I find myself unconsciously yet ritualistically visiting the same places, hoping to find that they haven’t changed. Looking at the photographs I’ve taken of these places as a whole, I feel they represent a strong mythology present in my upbringing, of the rural yet industrialized landscape, of the stories my grandmother told me of the good old days, of the Native American histories before our prescence here in America. As a kid I spent forty-five minutes everyday traveling to school on the bus, staring out the window, my mind combing the horizon, creating landmarks perhaps known only to me. Eighteen years later I possess the distance to see these places in one way as old familiar friends, yet clearly figments of my imagination in another. I’m still photographing, and probably always will be.
This project also has become part of a collaboration with Chicago based artist Brett Ian Balogh. See http://www.in-absentia.org/.
As of 2008, I’ve lived for eighteen years in New York, and eighteen in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. Over the years, when visiting back home, I find myself unconsciously yet ritualistically visiting the same places, hoping to find that they haven’t changed. Looking at the photographs I’ve taken of these places as a whole, I feel they represent a strong mythology present in my upbringing, of the rural yet industrialized landscape, of the stories my grandmother told me of the good old days, of the Native American histories before our prescence here in America. As a kid I spent forty-five minutes everyday traveling to school on the bus, staring out the window, my mind combing the horizon, creating landmarks perhaps known only to me. Eighteen years later I possess the distance to see these places in one way as old familiar friends, yet clearly figments of my imagination in another. I’m still photographing, and probably always will be.
