I have an interest in how we as humans use land. How the land reacts, what it gives up and how humans adapt to suit their use of the land. It’s hard to escape nostalgia when you study an area that is defined by what it has been. This landscape is shaped by the hand of humans and structures are built around the cycle of growth and decay. Symbols and relics of forward progress are all around us. However, many have been left to deteriorate and their efforts have been abandoned. Evidence of a relationship between the past and the present.
The images from “A Survey of the Eastern Plains” are a culmination of wanderings in and around the Pawnee Grasslands in Northeast Colorado. An area that was particularly hit hard by draught and efficient farming making it difficult for smaller less successful land workers to survive.
Working photographically in this landscape gives me an opportunity to step into the history of this land and its relationship to the present. The triumphs as well as the broken dreams of those who have come before it. I find myself placed into this puzzle imagining stories of this life. The moments of victory and the tragedies that have turned this region into what it is.