Hi I am Jon !
Photography is my way of being in the world since 1980, when my father gave me a Nikon FE. Before, I experienced things through sound — listening to bands like KISS, Hendrix and the Dead before the camera. Taking photos forever shifted my attention to seeing and feeling places. Years later in architecture school my curiosity deepened. I photographed buildings, streets, parks, and people — not just as reference for drawings, but because I felt something more than physical form. Most of the time the photographs showed what I saw, but occasionally, something else appeared in a print: the feeling I had, tension, a presence felt when I was there. I learned to develop film and began to try to understand this visual language. One day I found an old Leica rangefinder at a yard sale and became obsessed, it has never left my side. Photographing a landscape reveals what lies beneath the surface: layers of memory, what we feel and know.
For now I’m based in Alabama, drawn to old buildings and abandoned fields, trying to glimpse the layers of history of the old South. Influences: Walker Evans, Alec Soth, Joel Meyerowitz, and William Eggleston
For this blog I've decided to go back to the beginning of how we learned to think. With my library card in hand I’m reading Greek philosophers, learning the history of ideas shaping how we perceive the world. Additionally I'm share my notes studying the Bible, another major influence. Our DNA is made of chemical building blocks (nucleotides), similarly our minds are made from thoughts and ideas that form western civilization. Written from the perspective of where I live — a trailer park in rural Alabama, camera in one hand, library card in the other. I hope to be better understand why we think about places and community the way we do and take a few photos of what I feel.
If you’d like send me a message →