Introduction

When I was twelve I brought my camera to the circus. I arrived at the fairgrounds in the morning and spent the day with the circus workers, photographing the animals, their handlers and the tent being raised. When I wandered behind the curtains to see how they lived, the performers shared their meals and offered me a glance into their lives. It wasn¹t until I processed the negatives that I realized I had avoided photographing the actual performance; it was the solitary moments backstage and in between events on which I had focused. This day, and these quiet moments, would set the tone and the mood of my photography.

There is a place in Azerbaijan called the Winterground, where the herders would traditionally spend the winter months. It was here, in these greener pastures, that I met and photographed the Winterground refugees. Every spring, for generations, these seasonal nomads would return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. However, in 1990, a war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia and, since then, the herders have been unable to return to their permanent homes. Consequently they¹ve had to reside in abandoned boxcars, old factories and holes dug into the ground and covered with earth and sticks.

Much like the circus workers and the refugees of Winterground, we all, to some extent, live in a world that allows us little control over where we spend our days, where we work and who we meet. These photographs represent people and environments suspended in a time, place and circumstance beyond their control. The mood is one of a people isolated in civilization, but connected in darkness.

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