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After the Japanese Disaster and into the Fukushima Exclusion Zone
Last week I traveled with Japanese advertising director and photographer Yohei Morita through Tōhoku, the Japanese region critically affected by the March 11, 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and subsequent nuclear disaster. Tōhoku is wedged between the Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean on the northern portion of the country’s largest island, Honshu. Compared to southern…
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Chicago at -15 Fahrenheit
Over the last several days, the Chicago region experienced as much as 18 inches of snow and temperatures as low as -15 Fahrenheit (roughly -26 Celsius). I love how snow transforms the city and how low temperatures affect the visibility of water vapor, so I headed out to get a sense of the South Side…
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A Year of Projects and More Travel
2013 was yet another year of big changes: I finished my fieldwork for my dissertation; I started regularly spending time in both Chicago and Cambridge, Massachusetts; and I started a major shift in the balance of my photographic and video work. In previous years, I pursued a relatively equal combination of project and non-project work.…
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Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia
Last week I traveled to Atlanta, Georgia to co-present a paper at an academic conference and spend a little time exploring in the region. I only had parts of three days away from the conference, but thanks to some planning, I was able to accomplish more than I anticipated. The following photographs are some of…
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Almost There in Northwestern Indiana
As regular followers of my flickr stream know, since January I have been producing environmental video for the Kartemquin Films documentary Almost There. The film follows an 82-year-old artist who lives in the Northwestern Indiana region, and my goal was to provide a sense of the landscape in relation to his important life events. While…
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Visiting Detroit the Day it Declared Bankruptcy
The news about Detroit’s bankruptcy broke as I finished packing the car for the four hour drive across Michigan. We weren’t visiting Detroit to cover its bankruptcy and didn’t seek out the choreographed events looping through the headlines. Other than bumping into a press conference complete with half a dozen news vans and plenty of…