At 6:00 tonight (18:00), the state of Georgia is officially on  "Shelter in Place". We have been out today to do some last minute things, well, really just one, and it's a madhouse of sorts. Luckily that was all done early, and we're at home, where we have been for most of the past two weeks. As the reality of this settles in for all of us, though others have been here for a while, it's seems like a good idea to reflect on what you can to get your mind off of things. For me, as it normally is, that comes in immersing myself in work. I don't know how healthy that normally is, but it helps.

What I wanted to do, as I've been working on some things over the past week, is give a little look into not only that work, but what I've been brewing over the past year. I'm not going to say any of this is finished, but it has developed from a broad concept into, if nothing else, a guide for where I see my work going for the foreseeable future. I have some other ideas in mind, but this is work that has been done, and I want to talk about it a little.

A year ago, we rented an apartment in downtown Macon, Georgia. The idea was to only be here for a year, and although the reason for the move had nothing to do with work, I wanted to take the time that I was here and try to make something of it. Over time, I began to see my work and process here develop much the way I would expect it to in a long-term residency. I ended up studying the area around me and tried to apply myself and my way of seeing to my new environment. As this time is coming to an end, I've found that things are becoming much clearer, and if I don't have a full, cohesive body of work that has come out of this time, I at least have a better insight into where my work is at this moment.

I have been saying for the past few years that my work is a type of street photography, but I had started to lean to a concept of Social Landscape photography, or at least a mix of the two. Since my work is considerably devoid of people, at least in a physical form, it tends not to be considered street photography, but I do tend to work and move through places the way one might when shooting more traditional street photography. The social landscape, though, that which is formed and, in a way, dictated by human interaction and crafting, is probably a more appropriate term to describe the work I have done and continue to do. I don't have anything against people, and have included them in work, but I find that my work is a reflection of what I think about, and the people in the images are not the subject, at least not directly, and therefore distract from the illustration if they are there, or at least obvious.

All that said, here is a working artist statement to give you an idea of where the work is right now. There is a tab, "New Work", that has some other images from this past year. It may change soon, along with the working title, but give it a look if you haven't already, as it was the incubator for what is in the works. I hope all is well with everyone, and that you are all staying as safe as you can in these weird times. Let's keep our distance and stay healthy!

"Time seems to overlap in the social landscape of cities and towns. As time goes by, structures build up, and become like sedimentary layers in which we can see the history of the social landscape reveal itself. Sometimes these places flourish and continue to be desirable, yet others have their moment and drift into disuse, while still others seemingly fluctuate through times of use and disuse.

These layers, formed by buildings, roads, power lines, and more, crate a landscape that we tend to passively interact on a daily basis. Whether we drive past them while focused on the road, or walk past them, intent on where we are going, our familiarity with them tends to draw us away from seeing the complexity of a common, yet graphically intriguing, landscape.

The form and flow of these landscapes, and some of the details that they offer, have always provided me with questions, most of them narrowing down to "what" and "why". What was here? Why is it not here anymore? What was this like? Why doesn't anyone else see this? I've never really asked these questions of anyone else, but these images are my attempt to give myself some answers. If nothing else, there is form and structure that makes me content and drives me to ask more questions that I can attempt to answer."