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For lack of a better term, the working title of this series is "America," for the simple reason that it's about the places I've visited within this nation, the things I've seen and found of interest. It's a tentative beginning, because this synergy of landscape, street, object, and occasionally a random human or two, has only recently converged. It's no longer about those separate categories, it's all run together.

There are images here of the coast and of the heartland; of the ordinary, and of the unique. As I sort though recent images and continue to create new ones, this series will increasingly include a collection of photographs that I hope will begin to capture the diverse natural and man-made landscape of America, the divided political feelings, the sophisticated but worn cities and the insulated small towns. In these trying economic times, maybe it will begin to capture the fear.

Although there may be a few images of seemingly natural places, there will be no myth of the pristine landscape here. This is not about Adams-esque soaring spirituality of place; if anything, it's more about the abuse we've heaped on our land. But at the same time it's about the resilience of the land, the rebirth of nature in some places, even as other places fall to the relentless march of suburban sprawl.

The inspiration comes from so many places. It comes from the street photographers, from Riboud and Cartier-Bresson and Frank and Gibson and others like them, and from my own counterculture beginnings on the city streets; it comes from those who photograph the landscape without cropping out the decay, including the later and darker images of Weston. It comes from the simplicity and calm insight of zen and the tao. It comes from the documentary philosophers, people like de Toqueville and Purdy and Solnit. It comes from the New Urbanists. It comes from the rebels, most recently from de Toledo, himself a relative of Riboud... thus bringing it full circle.

More than most, it's an active series, one that will shift in meaning over time, as I explore new places, find new connections. But then, the journey itself is half the fun.



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October 12, 2008