I am not a morning person

Photography is the only art of mine that is bred from my own set of rules and standards. I’m a musician, and I play by note structures that others have defined. When I write I do so by obeying, or at least attempting to obey, rules of grammar and punctuation that others have defined. When I design layouts for print or Web, I always keep in mind that I must do so with the intended audiences perspective in mind. But photography is something that, unless done for a particular project, there are no rules or limits for me that others set. Call it selfishness, greed, callousness if you will. I call it none of these. I’m only taking for myself in the moment. And if my sharing what I’ve seen, or altering images to show them how I see them, doesn’t suit others rules or limitations, it doesn’t change how I will continue to take or alter my photographs in the future. That’s not to say that my style is not largely influenced by every photographer, famous or not, whose photographs I’ve seen or every other kind of artists’ works that I’ve loved or hated. That’s not to say that if one person today shows disgust in a particular aspect of my style, I will not consider the possible flawed nature of this detail. What I mean is that I am the rule setter, the rule breaker, the eye, the shutter, film, the pixels, and the paper in the moment before I hear “click.”

"Writers in our own century, hunting as always for metaphors that will stick in the mind, have called it the Midlands, the Middle Border, the Corn Belt, the Breadbasket, the Inland Sea, the Great Valley, the Heartland, the Hear of the Country. Whatever the name, this is my home region."  Scott Russell Sanders

My "The Midwest" photo gallery will be photos that I'm taking since moving back to Indiana after a long stint in Washington and a year in the Carolinas. You'll notice a lot of quotes from the Indiana native Scott Russell Sanders accompanying my pictures. Sanders is one of the most brilliant American writers and certainly one of the best to reside in this region. Coming from the Ohio River Valley himself, he is able to capture the soul of this region, its past, present, and the likelihood of its future if we don't love our land more than we are now.

Sanders' words are moving in a conservationist tone, but his honesty to our human limitations, rings through in essays that plead for change while not coming across as overly preachy. I know now, even though I’ve not been back very long, I will be capturing many images that question our mistreatment of the land in this region. I would like my pictures to mirror the voice of Sanders when they point out this way of trashing resources. I want to plead for change but not preach, not condemn. Recognizing that all litter is not deliberate, all carelessness is not calculated, I’d like to ask everyone (myself included) if this is the standard by which we want to live by.

You will be born. You will suffer in the process, cold, wet, and naked to an unfamilar world, to the room that you have just opened your eyes to, having left the comfort of the only home you ever knew (your mother's womb). And they will cut you from her. Them, with masks on, drowning you with air and lights. They will snip your connection to her.
   Immediately you see that she is suffering to. She may even have endured as much as you, but you're not sure. You're only searching for a way back, for some kind of shelter, for a way back to the comfort that you have known inside your shell.
   For so long, all you knew was internal. Your mind, your body was inside. Only murmurs of this and that, some unintelligible noise disturbing or comforting you. Otherwise alone. There was safety in being alone. You are not alone. Not anymore.  
   The one you were cut from, came out of, are crying with, is reaching out to you. So far away. But their reach is so far away and you are helpless, flailing limply in the clutch of this strange masked person with cold and dry hands, holding you out. But now you are being moved across the room toward these outstretched hands of the one you came from. This one must know how to send you back to where you came from. They can put you back. But instead, they take you in their clutch. But they, not masked like the others, look at you with eyes so full of . . . fear, and wonder, and love . . . that for a moment you feel almost warm, sheltered, and safe again.
   Time passes and she never puts you back. In fact, the more time passes, the more you want to venture out and the more she lets go of you. Soon, you start to go so far that you shelter yourselt. You've found warmth in one thing or the other, or nothing at all, but you don't need her, you think. You're fine on your own. Except you aren't. You suffer. You suffer in new ways all the time so that you can never build a tolerance to the pain. But there is also comfort. There is pain, but the comfort you find is more rich, more powerful than anything you have felt before. So powerful that you suffer in wanting it so badly. So powerful that it sticks with you. Even in the end, it is there.
   Again, the masked people surround you as you lay in this unfamiliar place. Cold and naked, you look for outstretched arms, but they are not here. No one is here. Not even the masked people, for they left sometime while you were coming in and out of conciousness, awareness. Only machines murmur some intelligible noise, disturbing or comforting you. You cry, once again, tears of sadness and tears of joy. Sadness for the comfort you leave behind, joy for the pain that is almost over.
   You close your eyes and slip into a home you have never known (a tomb). And just as they have covered you in complete darkness, you feel a familiar touch of someone welcoming you to a new and unfamiliar world, the place you have just opened your eyes to. You are drowned by air and lights, colors and sounds, comfort and love. No tomb, no womb, but a place where all born connected to everything. All is one. All is comfort. All is love.

I went stomping through the quiet and lifeless, even leafless, winter forest early today when I had the urge to write something persuasive, something irresistable, so that all sad and sheltered Hoosiers may see 250-foot-tall trees and know that everything is going to be okay now. If you've seen 250-foot-tall trees, then you know what I mean when I say comfort. If you have, but you don't, then please look again and think of the word. Comfort. Say it out loud if necessary.

Look. Outside. What are your trees like? Every region can be defined by this. Not by some naturalist or poet or politician, but by the trees themselves. They define you. Your environment, your mood, your life. It all branches from, stems from, has roots in, grows in, flourishes when, dies when, and that's why I say again, look. Outside. At your trees. At your life.