My photography projects take time but time helps tell the story. I look for projects that take me to places that the photographer Walker Evans described best: "It's as though there's a wonderful secret in a certain place and I can capture it."
I start out as a stranger, asking people to trust me, to let me into their world, to tell me their story. Their acceptance is a gift that I take very seriously. I share my work with them. My first book, Heading Home, documents 6 summers of Little League baseball in 1 Baltimore Park. My second book, Fighting Chance, spends 3 years following 3 children, their families and caregivers as they fight childhood cancer. One mother said my photographs helped her understand what she was going through. The book ended up in every Ronald McDonald House in the country. My current book project, Little Italy, has gotten way out of hand! I started by standing in the pulpit of The Church of St. Leo The Great, looking out over unfamiliar faces and asking them to let me spend a year documenting their lives. 15 years later, with 20,000+ photographs, oral and video interviews and essays, I'm hoping Little Italy becomes my third book.