I’m driving through Logan County, West Virginia. It’s June 6, 2025 at 6:50 a.m. I notice the fog and the sun breaking through as I head southwest for Kentucky. I have to turn around and try to go make this picture. A few months ago, I would’ve kept driving, but lately I’m convincing myself to do the work.
I signal, cross the median, check my mirrors and double check over my shoulder to make sure there’s no traffic coming. I drive a few hundred yards, turn on my flashers, and ease out onto the shoulder of the road. I’ve done this hundreds of times. First, I put on my high-vis reflective safety vest then reach into my bag for my camera, and head toward the bridge where I saw the picture I wanted to make. I think I could probably pass for a surveyor or a road crew worker or something that would suggest that it was OK for me to be here.
Cars and trucks pass by on their way to wherever they’re going. I feel the overpass flex beneath my feet and remind myself that it’s designed for movement. I look out to the east where the sun shows me what I will not see when I pass through here again twelve hours from now. This is what a gift feels like.
I’m sitting at a picnic table in Logan County, West Virginia. It’s May 21, 2025 at 6:21 p.m. I am surround by makers and seers and doers, people I have grown to count on, to admire. I am listening to laughter and the unraveling of tension. We are on the thin margin of a late spring storm but are not be deterred as we eat our hotdogs and cheeseburgers and slurp our shakes. This is what fellowship feels like.
I’m thinking back to my childhood, not far from here, when I didn’t have the words to talk about so many things and how somehow I still don’t. Maybe photography is the vehicle for me to say the things I still can’t find the words for.
All of these shades of green and blue fold into one another and the light holds the moment long enough for me to raise my camera. This is what prayer feels like.
I’m driving south on a narrow road in Pike County, Kentucky. It’s June 18, 2025 at 7:55 p.m. My windows are down and the evening breeze makes me want to drive forever. I spot this doe and with her, a little fawn, who upon hearing my truck, dropped into the tall grass to hide. You see, instinct took over and the fawn knew to stay in place, in that very place, low to the ground. Safe. Ears out, the doe is on high alert. I don’t linger too long, but long enough to see the fawn bound through the high grass following its mom into the wood line.
I want to stay in one place, low to the ground. Close to the earth, this earth that I am from and of. I want to slow down and listen to this place, to see it, to remind myself it’s worth more than what lies under it and what can be taken from it. This is what longing feels like.
As I’ve mentioned in the last few newsletters, I’ve been spending some time with photobooks. One of the things that struck me today was just how wild the photobook market is now. I have several books that are worth ten times what I paid for them ten years ago and I’m just beside myself. I digress, but perhaps I’ll write more about that at some point. Here’s a recommendation:
In 2019, gallerist Sasha Wolf edited PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice, published by Aperture. I’ve always been interested in the process of making pictures. Sure, we all appreciate and admire the finished, framed print or exhibition, but I want to see the desks, studios, passenger seats, and behind-the-scenes pieces of a photographer’s process.
While we may not see inside LaToya Ruby Frazer’s studio, we are invited into her practice and her way of thinking about a body of work. “I don’t do ‘projects.’ A project assumes that there is a beginning and an end - a body of work is a commitment to a lifelong endeavor of investigation and learning,” she writes. I’ve read through the book a couple of times over the last few years and have heavily tabbed my copy (as evidenced below).
In July 2020 - peak pandemic - Wolf launched the PhotoWork podcast, which refers to each episode as “the talky and touchy-feely version of the book.” There are now nearly 100 episodes available to listen to for free. I’ve listened to dozens of episodes and always glean something from each one. Episodes include interviews with Melissa Catanese, Gregory Halpern, Lesley A. Martin, and many, many more.
You can order the book here and subscribe to the podcast here. I highly recommend doing both.
I’m still reading Irene McKinney’s Unthinkable: Selected Poems 1976-2004.
I’m listening to Tommy Prine - especially “The Mirror and the Kitchen Sink.”
I watched Shut Up And Paint about artist Titus Kaphar.
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Remember, it’s OK to slow down.
Roger
Good stuff as usual Roger. When I travel alone, I often pull off the roadside to capture a photo -- mostly of sunsets/sunrises, cloud formations, old barns and such. I don't do this as much when my wife is with me. I need to remind her that "it's OK to slow down."
Thanks for two things. The beautiful writing on your part. The entry about the doe was especially touching and poignant.
And the tip about the podcast. Somehow this wasn’t on my radar before.