Grays the Mountain Sends combines portraiture, landscapes, and still lifes in a series of photos that explores the lives of working people residing in small mountain towns and mining communities in the West. Equipped with a large format view camera, and inspired by the work of Western poet Richard Hugo, I’ve aimed to hint at narratives and to relay the experiences of strangers met in settings that spur my own emotions. This body of work is ultimately a meditation on small-town life, the landscape, and more importantly, the inner landscapes of common men.
Robert Adams once referred to the history of the American West as a "tragic progression." I’m interested in what’s tragic, less on a sweeping scale regarding the degradation of the physical landscape and more so on a personal level that involves specific individuals, their surroundings, their stories, feelings and psychology. Broad views of terrain wounded by mining and habitation are nevertheless included in the series, but when juxtaposed with intimate portraiture, they serve foremost as metaphors for human experience. When involved with industry and agriculture, land, like people, gets used up and worn down, yet in certain light, both retain their dignity and grace, helping us understand how to endure.
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