I was really poor for most of my adult life.

I've been taking pictures since I was probably 16. I'm 54, and I can't believe how excited I am.

I like getting stuff out of the way so you can see something clearly, see it sharply, have it be new again.

Something about photography is tied to a very specific relationship with the material world. It doesn't have to be, but the way I practice it, it is. So there's an act of observation, but it's not an act of objective recording. It's about framing something and seeing it and understanding that it's relational.

What attracts me in photography is not so much a fine arts approach, but rather photographs as documents... All the ways in which human beings have documented the world in an attempt to order it, in an attempt to consume it or rule it or hang on to it in some sense.

I'd grown up poor; I had no idea what it was like to be comfortable.

Making work for me is being in the world, but it's also being specific about being in the world. I'm interested in this increasingly rare space of contemplation and taking the time and energy to be thoughtful.