“in situ - in natural, original, undisturbed or appropriate position”
Many of the things I like to photograph have a thick layer of dust on them. Preserving history and natural history is a key aim of my work and film photography has a singular power to do so. A crumbling farmhouse tarped to keep the elements out, a group of vintage hats for sale, forgotten taxidermy mounts - artifacts that may or may not be around in the future for our children to see. Writer and photographer Wright Morris cornered the market on collection of images from one’s past in his photo-essays of prairie lives, childhood homes and junk drawer contents. As he stated in Time Pieces-Photographs, Writing and Memory, “Photography discovers, recovers, reclaims, and at unsuspecting moments collaborates with the creation of what we call history.” Dust plus time doesn’t always equal a good picture, but, perhaps it’s not a good picture that I’m after in the end- it’s the process of recording a bit of history...
