Railroad Landscapes: West Virginia — Cleveland — China — Hokkaido — Western U.S. — Portland
I took up photography during the second of the eight years that I lived in Cleveland. The city is a rich visual environment pitting the hard angles of brick-and-steel industrialism against the graceful curves of Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga Valley, yet I largely ignored these vivid photographic possibilities. Only in my final year in Cleveland did I begin to seriously approach it with my camera, and by then I already knew I would be leaving.
The images presented here flowed from a sense of urgency. My time in Cleveland was quickly running out and I had almost nothing to show for it in my photography. Almost in an instant, I finally understood that I didn’t need mountain scenery to make interesting photographs. That seems so obvious now, but it was a difficult realization for this child of Appalachia. Cleveland, my patient teacher, I only wish I had learned your lessons sooner.
