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These photos come from an ongoing project looking at the south side of my hometown of Rockford, Illinois. An emblematic Rust Belt city, Rockford has suffered from losing much of it's once-formidable manufacturing economy. Most of the manufacturing resided on the south side and in recent decades, it has undeniably become the poorer, "bad" side of town. With these photos I look inward at myself, outward at Rockford, and aim to capture something ineffable; a feeling, a mood. On my more optimistic days, I hope that I can touch on something about America and, more broadly yet, the human condition. The psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck wrote “The principle form that the work of love takes is attention”. I have come to feel that love is an underlying motivator in this work. There is an affection and affinity that lays at the root of these photos, for both Rockford specifically and for humanity in general. For all our faults and foibles, I can’t help but be enamored by people and the things we create. In the act of photographing, I acknowledge that the person or scene that stands before my lens has dignity and beauty. It is worthy of attention. It is worthy of love .