k e n t u c k y

I drove off in a direction one spring and quickly made friends with
some of the people of southeastern Kentucky.  I lost count of how many
trips I made over the next year and a half or so, but I kept returning
because I thought that there was some story to tell about the place
and its people.  It turned out that there were a lot of stories to
tell, and to be fair and honest, I would not be be able to place a few
photos and say, "this is what the place is like".  So, for now, I will
just post these photos to give an idea of whom I met and what I saw.
I wrote a bunch of diaries of many of the personalities depicted here
and I promise to go through them soon, to post them as part of this
recounting.  

I realized along the way of doing this some of the limits of what I
thought photography could do to help people out.  I wanted to help,
not harm, but I gathered that no matter what I showed or what I wrote,
that I would somehow be betraying the trust of the people I came to
know there.  Other events in my life conspired to force a
reconsideration of my trajectory, so I ended up going to nursing
school for a couple of years to try to give voice to the "wanting to
help" impulse that I felt was so frustrated by my role as a
photographer.  So, this is all a step along my way that I thought you
might be interested in seeing.

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