Of This Place: Photographs from North Carolina

"Write about the land beneath your feet." —Eudora Welty North Carolina has been my home and subject since I moved to Raleigh from New Jersey in 1989. I have now photographed in 365 cities, towns and small rural communities across the Tar Heel State. I work in the tradition of straight photography, one that embraces process and the unity of vision and craft. I am a black-and-white-film photographer. I use manual cameras and standard lenses. And I process film and make gelatin silver prints in my darkroom. While I acknowledge the documentary nature of my work, I am compelled to photograph by the visual aspects of a scene: geometry, beauty (especially when perceived in the un-beautiful) and the transforming power of light. Twenty-four years after arriving in the South, I continue to make photographs as an homage to home and to reflect my experience of this place.