I have to laugh because you could say I’ve got too much time on my hands, otherwise why would I find myself scanning through old photographs taken last month, last year or even ten years ago? Reinterpreting old images is always risky. It can expose you to your shortcomings, but it can also make you aware of your progress, as a photographer. An effort that I’ve renewed since my retirement – another example of having time on my hands. I really do make the effort to become a better photographer, even though that might not be so obvious to some. But revisiting and reinterpreting an old image provides me the opportunity to see the past in new ways. And it’s interesting how your viewpoint changes over time.
Making photographs requires me to acknowledge that vision is highly objective. What I like, you might not care for and so on. While taking a photograph is a singular experience it is important, I think to share your vision of the world around you. And so I continue to update my photographs on this site with current images (“A Morning with Daniel Boone) but I’ve also added a few older images that I think are worth taking another look at (New Orleans & Croatia).
Talking about growing as a photographer, I am undertaking an effort not just to take snapshots of this and that, but to expand my work into larger projects, that collectively taken together, tell a larger story. This latest project I am calling, “Voices from the River”.
Many of you are aware of my storytelling or documentary style of photography. My series from Wendell Foster and the story of the relationships between the clients and staff, or my series of Hospice services and the power and grace of end of life stories are examples.
I have spent a lifetime living along a river. The Ohio, Tennessee, Green, and Tangipahoa Rivers in communities, who owe their very existence to their location on the river. Trade, travel routes, rich farmland and teaming wildlife were a few of the reasons why early settlers came and often stayed at a place along the river that would grow and prosper in the early days of our country’s expansion. Today, rivers are no less important to the prosperity, economy and the cultural identity of a community and the people who live along a river’s banks.
Each day the rivers flow past countless towns and communities and each day the rivers give us another story. The rivers rise and fall, an in the distance, we hear a tugboat’s horn blow hard and loud. Its bow cuts through dark brown water, oil slick and drift, and the rivers continue to flow and tell their story as they have for generations. Plus, there is the mythology of the rivers, Huck Finn and all that which I think we all find appealing
So, thinking about all of this I want to tell a story about the people who live and work along the river. To tell the story about the towns, the landmarks, and the memories of the rivers through a collection of photographs.
No easy task as you might imagine so I am giving myself a year or more to complete this project. But I need your help.
Is there a location or landmark along the river that speaks to you? Is there a person who has been defined by their connection to the river? If so, please let me know by sending me the name of a town, a landmark, a location or person – anything you have come across and find interesting. Send your ideas and suggestions below or send me an email.
“Voices from the River” will be published as a book or magazine. And anyone who sends in a suggestion or idea, I’ll send a complimentary copy of Voices From the River. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Thanks
Queen of the Mississippi at the riverfront in Paducah, Kentucky