Portraits are Mirrors: Iron Range Portrait Days

The communities of the Iron Range in northeastern Minnesota live in a constant economic cycle of boom or bust. Forty years ago iron ore mining employed 14,000. Today the number is 4,000. Residents known as "Rangers" have a very strong sense of tradition and community identity coupled with a hands-on approach to life and pugnacious good humor. For this series, I asked each person photographed to consider what being a "Ranger" meant to them not knowing exactly what the film would record. This work is a part of an extensive project photographing the Iron Range.