I just returned from a two week trip to the Faroe Islands to film some TV ads. While there, I was able to squeeze in some time to photograph for my “Home” project. In early October, many Faroese collect their sheep from the mountains and slaughter them. Families and communities come out to help herd sheep and work in basement abattoirs, receiving meat in return. It was wonderful to witness people being so involved in the food they will consume. Having to interact with animals before you kill and eat them is something that feels so far removed from American life today. The only living things I interact with to get food is waiters and grocery store cashiers.
This trip was also a time when my technical limitations came into play. I have set rules for myself with this project, a key one being to use only one camera, a large format 4×5. While this is amazing to work with in some settings, being carried up and down mountains and photographing in dark, crowded basements is not its strong suit. But this reaffirmed something that I have been thinking through for the last six months: Not everything needs to be photographed. I think that the best image from this trip to the Faroes, the last in this blogpost, came from the night I shot the least. I just allowed myself the chance to talk and learn, and then afterwards tried to make a picture that represented what I had seen and heard. The first five images in this post were made in an attempt to document what was happening in front of me. The last was made to communicate what I experienced. This is a new approach for me and one I am excited to try and develop.
Sheep are herded down the mountain | Skáli
Jonhedin holds his lamb | Skáli
Sheep are divided and loaded into cars and trucks | Skáli
After removing a sheep’s head | Kollafjørður
Martin burns the wool off of sheep heads, which will be boiled and eaten | Leynar
Sheep skins sit outside of a slaughterhouse at night | Argir
-b
I have taken a break from blogging for the last few months to step back and reconsider what I want to communicate with this space. There is so much impersonal visual noise today, and I don’t want this blog to be a part of it. I hate the idea of this purely being a tool for self-promotion, and only posting about assignments, awards, and travel. I believe successful visual communication is dependent on my subjects being vulnerable, so it seems hypocritical to not reciprocate that openness on this forum.
With that as a motivation, I am taking both my work and this blog in a new direction. I have spent the summer working on a new long-term project called “Home”, which explores how people connect to place and what it means to belong to a community. “Home” will consist of three bodies of work that each look at a part of my own identity.
1. The Faroe Islands: The country of 45,000 residents where my father grew up.
2. Balabac: The small island of 27,000 residents off of the coast of the southern Philippines where I spent my childhood.
3. Chugwater, Wy: The town of 200 where my wife grew up, and which represents my adult connection to America.
My hope is that these images will communicate something of the commonalities between the individuals and communities portrayed, despite the great distances between them. This body of work is a thematic shift for me, but also a very natural progression of how I have been developing as a photographer. It is the result of a lot of conversations about matching the images I am make with my worldview.
This project is still in its infancy, and will grow and change over the next couple of years. During that time, I want this blog to be a place to share images and ideas, and to learn from others’ experiences with community and place. I hope that you will join me in this process as images are made and shared, and conversations are had both on this blog and offline.
Here are some of the first images from the Faroe Islands.
Playing in the sand - Syðrugøta
Runi during his summer holiday - Kirkjubøur
Watching a soccer match - Tórshavn
-b
