The Bishop Mudpuddle, 2003-2010

These serial photographs were made where a “mudpuddle” was formed at the entryway into a land development outside of Athens, GA. When I began, I had no idea that this small ecosystem would live for so long; I revisited to make photographs over a seven year period.

Slow, patient visual exploration of this very common, yet typically overlooked landscape (almost a side effect of “progress”) describes the push and pull between humans and nature.  It also begins to critique the notion of one best, most revealing, or exalted photographic instant. I think of these photographs as what emerged from a meditative practice over time, a form of my collaboration with this place. The images collectively reflect on the challenges inherent to defining a sense of place within a homogeneous and thus often indistinguishable American landscape and our culture’s tireless pace of progress.

All images are pigment prints in either 8x10 inches or 16x20 inches