Songs from the Road by Charlotte Strode

I started making photographs the year my dad died. He was a photographer, devoted Kentuckian, and a man who loved tradition, simplicity, and the complicated richness of being a Southerner. Through him, I learned what it means to have a profound affection for ones place on earth; Kentucky was in his bones, and therefore in mine.

I was living in the Northeast when he died, and felt as though I lost my anchor, my roots, and my home. I began to see place differently and realized that it’s impermanent and ever changing. The comfort and light of home felt irrevocably distant, and I started making photographs to somehow find that light again.

This project is about searching for a set of values alive in myself and in my memories – a simple way of living that feels humble and pure, rooted in a strong sense of place. It’s in thick air that mystifies, the fog that hushes, the hum of insects that make the world breathe, the river that holds my memories. Road trips have become an exercise to understand place and awaken these values, anywhere from the unfamiliar corners of Maine to the familiar reaches of the south. In the way that songs bring about stories and preserve memories, these photographs are my songs, each a different story.

Songs from the Road is series of photographs that allows me to both linger in my past and seek out a future that will keep these values alive.

Charlotte Strode lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, USA.
To view more of Charlotte's work, please visit her website.

You can purchase a photograph by Charlotte Strode from Fraction Editions.