Two years ago when I moved into my house off the corner of 34th and Barnard, I was wary of my new surroundings and of the neighborhood I was to call home for the next few years. The majority of the community consisted of African Americans who seemed to have a less than average income. As well, from the looks of them, homeless and drug addicts walked the streets, and the occasional prostitute stood on the corner. Being a small, Caucasian boy from Kansas still unaccustomed to all the south provided, I did my best to keep to myself. But as time passed and I observed the day to day passerby, I came to realize that these people were not anything like how I first judged them. These were individuals with their own stories, their own life experiences, that were vastly different from my own. Underneath their hard exterior, their was a beauty of character. This body of work attempts to capture a moment in a short built relationship between an individual and myself within a community. The idea was that I would ask strangers passing by if I could simply take a few photographs of them. But I soon discovered, as I continued to shoot and converse with each individual, that I was not taking photographs of strangers. These individuals in front of my lens were neighbors, coworkers, friends, family, all within what I realized was a close knit community. These people in front of my camera were not wanderers. This is where they live. They're home.
