American Traditions

This project is an extension of what Walker Evan’s called the lyric documentary, or as John Sanderson has come to adapt it, the documentary and poetic: “To briefly define my terms, the documentary is that which reveals particulars of a certain place at a certain time – in other words, a historical quality. The poetic indicates a heightened mood and directs how the photograph portrays its subject – for instance, the attribution of light and weather. When developing projects or bodies of work, I relate each picture through recurring motifs and cross-illustration — in American Traditions we see motifs such as roadways, text in the landscape, and portraits. The documentary/poetic mode runs across these projects at various intervals. The scope of this project is large scale, it is a view of the American experience which eschews regionalism and seeks to encapsulate a broad range of American subjects and personalities. It therefore combines portraits, landscapes, and still life photography.”