Although crowds gathered once if she but showed her face,
And even old men's eyes grew dim, this hand alone,
Like some last courtier at a gypsy camping place,
Babbling of fallen majesty, records what's gone.

The lineaments, a heart that laughter has made sweet,
These, these remain, but I record what's gone. A crowd
Will gather, and not know it walks the very street
Whereon a thing once walked that seemed a burning cloud.

 

Yeats, W.B. "Fallen Majesty". 1916. 

I went back to visit my hometown in September of 2013 shortly after my sister gave birth to her son. This was my first time back to the US after moving abroad with my wife and daughter a number of years earlier.

I spent some of this visit driving around, taking photos, and returning to certain spots from my past. I remembered going around those same places as a teenager with my first camera, cataloging my family, friends, and direct surroundings. Since leaving home my step-father had died, relationships changed considerably, and the family house had sold.

At some point in our lives we all experience this sensation of seeing a place as-it-is and as-it-was -- all at once. This edit hopes to capture an instance of that experience by interweaving my earliest photographs with that more recent set from 2013. 

A Burning Cloud is a very personal photo essay about changing lives, family dynamics, locations, and perspectives. It is composed of imagery from my early-mid teens and a set of shots from my late 20s. I have self published this book in two physical formats, and A4 photo booklet and an A5 zine. Thanks for having a look.