Mine

The 370-year-old city of Kingston, NY is on the Hudson River, 91 miles north of New York City. In anticipation of moving there in late 2017, I began photographing the city earlier that year. At first, my intention was to see whether Kingston could provide the dramatic backdrops I needed for my ongoing Silent Stages project, an effort to produce ‘cinematic’ black-and-white images. It turned out that Kingston did indeed offer the settings I was seeking to mine. But once I was actually living there, my purpose expanded. I discovered that photographing the city was a way for me to appropriate it. Kingston could never become my ‘home town’ in the way it was for those who had grown up in the city and lived there for decades. But exploring its streets, discovering its neighborhoods, its quirks and distinctive charms, especially during early morning and late-night hours, I developed an affection for the place and a conviction that, in some uniquely personal way, it was becoming mine.