June 27, 2010, 9:02:41 p.m., between 3rd and 4th Avenue.

When we bought our house six years ago, we knew that someday “the highway” would come within a couple of hundred yards of our property. With the environmental impact study in progress (or complete), it looks like someone’s been given the green light to proceed. We took a walk through the felled timbers and freshly cleared underbrush. The smell of cut wood and overturned earth was overpowering and the silence was deafening. It was a sad walk. I guess that’s the cost of convenience.

I’ve wrapped up my spring classes at the Center for Documentary Studies. It’s time to start getting in gear and planning some trips to Appalachia to make more pictures and work on my project. I snapped the above image when then kids and I visited the newly reopened and renovated North Carolina Museum of Art. Spectacular.

The last 45 days have been tough for me (and my family). I’ve had to confront some demons that I’ve just chosen to not deal with for a long, long time. Like nearly three decades. For me, there’s hope in Jesus Christ. He is the only one who could possibly take my wreck of a life and use it. Healing can only begin when things are truly dealt with at a core level. I realized that at 35, I’d never really let anyone into my life. Anyone. For me, healing has begun, but it’s a s-l-o-w process. I’m encouraged by knowing that I don’t have to rush to get better, but that I can choose each day to honor God and serve others or serve myself. I much prefer to honor Him and serve Him.

OK, so there’s that. Some new photo book acquisitions over the last month or so:

Builder Levy, Images of Appalachian Coalfields
Temple University Press, 1989
Hardcover | 124 pages | $56.49 (with shipping)
Stay tuned for an interview with Builder Levy right here on Take Your Camera for a Walk.

Rob Amberg, Sodom Laurel Album
A Lyndhurst Book, University of North Carolina Press in association with the Center for Documentary Studies
Hardcover | 192 pages | $13.02 (with shipping)
Rob Amberg is a graduate of the Duke Center for Documentary Studies and there’s a gorgeous print from this book hanging there.

Daylight Magazine, Issue 8
Daylight Community Arts Foundation, Inc.
Magazine | 62 pages | $13.88 (with shipping)
Issue 8 includes images from Tim Hetherington‘s series Sleeping Soldiers. Beautiful, brilliant work. I got to meet Mr. Hetherington at the Full Frame Documentary Festival last month before the screening of Restrepo. Oh, and he gave me a free pass to the film. And I had a picture made with him.

If you’d like your very own promotional card from my current project, just send an email with your address to rogermayphotography[at]me[dot]com and I’ll drop one in the mail. They’re approximately 6.5″ x 5″, ink jet prints on Inkpress fine art matte (220 gsm) paper on an Epson Stylus Photo R1900. There are 15 cards available. (Mom, thanks in advance for requesting one.)

I hope to start posting more. Let’s use this as a start. Thanks for stopping by.

(From November Blues as sung by the Avett Brothers.)