Driv(ing)-By(e)

Driv(ing)-By(e) is a title that references not just the physical creation of the images, but also my past as a forensic photographer. The physical creation of the images was mostly done while sitting in traffic. My drive home through Miami, Florida starts at approximately NW 7th ave and 14th street and takes anywhere from 45 min to an hour as navigate through side streets and cut up and down residential streets to avoid major intersections, accidents, or multiple blocks of stop lights. There isn’t any easy, major artery from north to south or east to west that takes me directly to where I need to be. Inevitably, I still end up in bumper to bumper traffic, inching along. Stationed in the center console, close at hand, is my camera. The title is also an ominous reference to “drive-by shootings.” As a forensic photography intern at the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner’s office during 2003, I photographed over 700 autopsies. Quite a few were of victims from drive-by shootings and many were burned into both film and memory. In some sense, there is something at once familiar and distant about the areas I drive through. To be sure, none of these locations were actual crime scenes that I was present to photograph, but I do drive past the Medical Examiner’s office many days during the drive home.