Photographer of the Week
From March 31, 2025, to April 06, 2025 – Week 14
Behind the Shot: South of the Blacktop
“South of the Blacktop” is from my on-going project, Far From the City, a series featuring the rural Midwest. The sparsely populated out-of-the-way settings of most of these photos are “well worn” like a pair of old blue jeans.
Living in Illinois, I am in the center of the of the United States. This area, sometimes called The Heartland, is the agricultural center of America. Some of the most fertile soil anywhere in the world is here. Corn, soybeans, and wheat fill the fields, and cattle, hogs, and sheep are raised. Beneath a big sky, century old barns and farmhouses dot the flat landscape.
Many of my photos depict what remains of the nineteenth and twentieth century family farms and their surroundings. I am drawn to the subjects that harken back decades, reminders of a way of life that is fading. A combination of history and nostalgia inspire me to preserve an earlier time through photographic images.
Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”, ends with the words, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Traveling the back roads of the Midwest, I find those words ring true.
