Topophilia

Topophilia is literally “love of place.” When Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan wrote a book entitled Topophilia in the 1970s, he claimed that the term could include “all emotional connections between physical environment and human beings.”    Landscape photographers must focus on the natural beauty of place, the topography of the land and the dynamics of how light touches the earth. They reject man-made obstructions. Rather than exploring the natural landscape, I’m more drawn to the social landscape and the hints of the humans who were there. My quest in this series is to document these very obstructions and to focus on the traces of people and how they leave their marks on the landscape in simple and beautiful ways.
Homecoming at Jenkins County High School in Millen, Georgia
Jenkins County, Georgia
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles
The Fountain of Youth Spa, Niland, CA
Hotel art in Block Island, RI
Author Karin Slaughter’s map in her North Georgia mountain
Bed at an inn in the Aran Islands of Ireland
Everglades City, Florida church potluck
Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic recovery room
Everglades City, Florida, the view above an airboat
Rural Kansas barn
Cienfuegos, Cuba
Jenkins County, Georgia
New Orleans ladder
Skull Valley, Arizona
Sun City
Girl’s bedroom, Prescott, AZ
Sun City, Arizona
After the high school reunion, Lebanon, Kansas
Sun City
Lamb at a Greek Orthodox Easter feast in the Atlanta suburbs
Masterpiece
A back wall of the Sun City Model Railroad Club
Skull Valley, Arizona
Lincoln Park, Los Angeles
Music plays as members of the Riverside Gurdwara
Dublin, Ireland
Kansas wheat field and a dirt road
Kansas wheat field
A portrait of Lebanon, Kansas, geographic center of the continenal United States and population around 200. Photographed May 2010.
Lebanon, Kansas
Sun City, Arizona
Sun City, Arizona
Sun City, Arizona
Havana, Cuba
Whitehall, Montana farmer’s market
Mars Hill, North Carolina

Topophilia is literally “love of place.” When Geographer Yi-Fu Tuan wrote a book entitled Topophilia in the 1970s, he claimed that the term could include “all emotional connections between physical environment and human beings.”    Landscape photographers must focus on the natural beauty of place, the topography of the land and the dynamics of how light touches the earth. They reject man-made obstructions. Rather than exploring the natural landscape, I’m more drawn to the social landscape and the hints of the humans who were there. My quest in this series is to document these very obstructions and to focus on the traces of people and how they leave their marks on the landscape in simple and beautiful ways.
Homecoming at Jenkins County High School in Millen, Georgia
Jenkins County, Georgia
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles
Eagle Rock, Los Angeles
The Fountain of Youth Spa, Niland, CA
Hotel art in Block Island, RI
Author Karin Slaughter’s map in her North Georgia mountain
Bed at an inn in the Aran Islands of Ireland
Everglades City, Florida church potluck
Birmingham, Alabama abortion clinic recovery room
Everglades City, Florida, the view above an airboat
Rural Kansas barn
Cienfuegos, Cuba
Jenkins County, Georgia
New Orleans ladder
Skull Valley, Arizona
Sun City
Girl’s bedroom, Prescott, AZ
Sun City, Arizona
After the high school reunion, Lebanon, Kansas
Sun City
Lamb at a Greek Orthodox Easter feast in the Atlanta suburbs
Masterpiece
A back wall of the Sun City Model Railroad Club
Skull Valley, Arizona
Lincoln Park, Los Angeles
Music plays as members of the Riverside Gurdwara
Dublin, Ireland
Kansas wheat field and a dirt road
Kansas wheat field
A portrait of Lebanon, Kansas, geographic center of the continenal United States and population around 200. Photographed May 2010.
Lebanon, Kansas
Sun City, Arizona
Sun City, Arizona
Sun City, Arizona
Havana, Cuba
Whitehall, Montana farmer’s market
Mars Hill, North Carolina

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