Interior.

Control Panel, Hardhats. Meadowbrook Coal Company, Lykens Pa. 2006.

Strange.

Pro-Life. Route 309, Outside of Tamaqua Pa. 2007.

While Santorum still held office and wasn't quite a laughing stock* yet, these signs popped up along highways, scattered around north eastern and central Pa, as I had seen a few on my drives through the area and near the town I grew up in. I have no idea of their maker or purpose and I found them to be really bizarre and random. They were well made, obviously constructed with care, and relatively large, as they could be read from the highway. Why the white cross? The flower? Why the text?

I have always been fascinated by the signage along highways. My interest lies not in the billboards, not in the messages and images that want to convince me to spend money, but in the signage that has been put up by individuals. I am perpetually boggled at the maker of such text and signs. What's the intent? Why put something so nonsensical in such a visible place? What need does placing the sign fulfill?

*Depending on who you ask, I suppose.

Sometimes, I Like to Pretend I am Alec Soth.

Sleeping by the Strippings. Williamstown, PA.

What? Like you've never done it.

Highways.

Routes 61 & 81. Frackville Pa. 2006.
For whatever reason, I have always really loved this photograph. The original chrome, however, was not well exposed (it was probably over about 1.5 stops) and when I first scanned it, it was hard to do much with it and get it to look the way I wanted it to. My photo editing skills have increased ten fold since I made the picture and I was thrilled to be able to clean it up and make the picture look like it should. The sky isn't quite what it needs to be but for now, I can live with that.

Terry.

Meadowbrook Coal Company. Lykens, PA

I was always really hesitant to use the handful of photographs I took of people while I was photographing. The portraits I made, I always felt, weren't right, weren't quite good enough, didn't fit in with the images I was working with. To this day, I look at this picture and I go "I took that?!".

Reclaim.

Coal Reclaim Operation. Meadowbrook Coal Company, Lykens PA. 2007.

On Recent and Not-so-Recent Personal History.

Jer 29, Outside of Hometown, PA. 2007.
When I wake up in the morning, it is easy for me to forget about the time that I spent frantically, obsessively, and joyously making photographs for an audience. Then, I could hardly wait 7 whole days before coming home to photograph, to leave behind grades and work and school and bills and do nothing but make the photographs I wanted to make. Now, I swim, I shower, I eat breakfast, I drive to work, I work, I come home, I eat, and I go to bed. Somewhere in there, I spend time with my girlfriend, read books about things that matter to me, go to the library, do volunteer work and somehow, find meaning in who I am and what I am doing. I rarely spend time making new work and go months between picking up a camera to make new images. Then, the meaning that I need to have in my life was so ever present on a daily and on-going basis, I had little time to breathe, to think, to just exist. Now, I force myself to find it and the time between making pictures is long and punctuated. Moving forward (as I seem to need to always do), I hope to somehow find a balance between the two.



Jack O' Lantern. Pottsville, Pa. 2006.
Before stepping forward, however, I have wanted to turn my eye towards the past, towards the family I came from, the person I was and photographs I made when I was that person in order to figure out who I am today, who I am working towards becoming. There are gaps for me, in my personal past, that I cannot recall. There are months from college and the year that followed that I can't conjure up no matter how I try; I am missing pieces of my memory as it has been erased by anxiety, truncated by depression.

I have spent the last month scanning, cleaning up and correcting images that I had made during my time photographing in the coal region. My neg binder from that time period is overstuffed with chromes of varying degrees of exposure (good, bad, in between) and images that I had long forgotten about. Editing them and paring them down so quickly in school did not allow me time to live with many of them, to think about them. I made the decisions about those images so quickly that the edit became the entirety of the project and the other images that were taken with them had been forgotten about until recently.



Landscaping. Hometown, PA. 2007.
Going through the images and seeing them again for the first time in well over 3 years brought me back to those places. Those moments in and around the shutter opening and closing were present for me so suddenly and vividly. It conjured up all of the thoughts and sensory input that are linked to those places and I remembered why I started making those images, started exploring that place to begin with.

From Coal Hunkie.

Trinity Lutheran Evangelical Church, Shamokin PA. 2007.

Working in a Coal Mine.

Mining the Mammoth Vein, Girard Coal Company, Girardville PA.



Reclaimed Strip Mine, Girard Coal Company, Girardville PA.

2007.

In and Around Port Clyde Maine.
My brief time spent in Maine last summer affected my senses so deeply that I find myself longing to go back more often than I expected. I loved the smell of the air and the great rocky beaches and the lobster boats bobbing in the harbors and the way the pine trees hung over the cliffs into the ocean. I, apparently, was pretty consumed with the textures and surfaces of the place.

Public Art?

The Clairon Bar & Hotel, St. Clair PA.



Across the Street, St. Clair PA.

I Dream a Highway Back to You.

Thunderbird on Main Street, Shamokin PA.

2006.

Our Lady of the Presentation, Brighton Ma.



Mid 70's Pontiac, Brighton Ma.

2005.

Gymnasium/Auditorium at CW Rice Middle School, Northumberland PA from We Are What We Are.

I can tell you how sneakers sounded on that gym floor, what the smell of the stage was under the lights. I could tell you stories about chipped front teeth, humiliating gym classes, and awkward middle school dances. But you, dear reader, can fill in the details for yourself.

The next couple of days will be dedicated to some older work that's been floating around on my harddrive and stuff from Coal Hunkie that I'd like to get posted. It's stuff that I love and still go "Oh shit! I totally made that photo" when I look at it.

From Last Summer.

Lobster Rolls for Sale, Over 25 Served. Port Clyde, Maine.

The American Pastime.

Lebanon Middle School, Lebanon CT.
I am not particularly emotionally invested in baseball. I grew up only vaguely aware of the Philadelphia Phillies perpetual defeat. Football was the staple sport in my house and in my family; rarely was there a weekend when someone wasn't going to a Penn State football game. Football blared from the TV from late August until January, when the Superbowl's last seconds ticked down in the corner of the screen. Sure, I've been to baseball games (The Former Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons) and I understand the basic premise of the game. I won't ever ask what quarter the game is in, I vaguely understand stats, and occasionally I listen to a game on the radio if I happen to catch one. It was only recently I admitted my love of football to the outside world, as sports were a symbol and part of dominate culture in the U.S. that was really alienating to me. They still are part of that culture, but more recently I've found myself able to relax and enjoy them. Games are better digested live, instead of through a TV screen. I look forward to going to IronPigs' and Penn State games when I move home.

But I don't love baseball. I feel like I should love baseball, given it is America's Pastime and everyone knows that I like to be a good American . There is something about it that is closely linked to early 20th century history, the rise of leisure and the middle class. It's kind of romantic, in the context of history. I don't really know anyone who doesn't know who the Babe or Jackie Robinson is or why they're Important. Honestly, I'm totally winging this from my impression of baseball in America but it seems so closely tied to democracy in a way that I can't quite put my finger on. I also suspect that it's tied to the American dream. Movies like The Sandlot and Field of Dreams are gleaming examples of this; work hard and you, too, can have success and fame and prosperity, despite whatever obstacles of class and race you will have to overcome!



Mount Carmel Little League Baseball Field, Mount Carmel PA.
Baseball diamonds dot the American landscape. Rarely can you drive through a small town that doesn't have something resembling a baseball field, be it overgrown or perfectly manicured. It is something huge when a new stadium goes up or an old one comes down. There is something strangely magical about standing at home plate or on the pitcher's mound of ANY baseball field, be it Fenway Park or the field down the street with no lights or bases. One can't help but feel connected to something bigger than themselves, as the baseball diamond is so pressed and adhered to the collective memory of the U.S.



Pitchers' Mound, Framingham, Ma.
Over the past year or so, I've taken notice to baseball fields, photographing them if I get the chance to. I love the way dilapidated or DIY'd backstops look. I like the freshly combed dirt, the overgrown outfield, and the geometry of the diamond from the corners of my eyes when I'm standing at home plate or on the pitchers' mound. While baseball diamonds are designed to function the same way and hold a specific sport, it is endlessly fascinating to me their immense variation, which is tied to location, class and level of skill of the teams that play on them. I find them to be really amazing things to photograph and awesome spaces to occupy. I recently started a flickr set, Playing Fields, where I'll put any and all future developments in this strange, totally-out-of-context interest of mine.

Build it and they will come, right?

November 5th 2005

Pottsgrove, PA. Aunt Amy's Driveway. From we are what we are.

I'm headed home on Wednesday and I am excited.

Blinded By the Light.

Image Drawing Faithful to Minersville.

In mid August, an image of what some described as the Virgin Mary appeared on a garage door on Lewis street, a narrow cracked alley way, in Minersville, PA. Hundreds of people came to see her, pray and bless various religious objects.

I drove to Minersville on August 29th and photographed the entire time she was "there", about 45 minutes. She slowly moved up the garage door as the sun set.



Before she arrived, the crowd of about 150 people buzzed and chatted quietly. One woman standing close to me passed around digital prints from the Rite-Aid up the street, noting the "supernatural" fog in the photos. Of it, she said "Digital cameras capture the energy around her better than film. I don't know what it is but they do." I glanced over her shoulder to notice the way the dirt on her camera lens was rendered in the photos. In the midst of the crowd whispering and snapping photos, I turned to the house across the street, noticed a large, shiny statue of the Blessed Mother in the second floor window and noted how the sunlight hit her just perfectly. I smiled to myself as I turned my eyes back to the crowd and to my ground glass.

Minor Bird, Jazz Saxaphonist, Framingham MA.

I had a chance with meeting with Minor Bird. I went to photograph a baseball diamond and a set of old bleachers that caught my eye. It was rainy and gray and cool for July. While I was approaching the park I heard jazz music, which seemed to be emanating from the trees. We eyeballed each other for the 15 or so minutes I was there until I walked up to him and said "What's up?"

Formal Living Room, Atlas PA.

Good god, I love this photo.