I’ve lived on and off in the Catskill Mountains for 25 years, and have been a homeowner several times over. However, the more experience I gain with land ownership, the less I understand it. I’ve witnessed my own relationship to the land shift from romantic reverence to selfish coveting to indifferent utility and have also observed the same complex contradictory feelings in my friends, family and neighbors.
By documenting the evolving landscape scenes from my everyday life, I am trying to reconcile my relationship to the land as I struggle to maintain a home and ecologically conscious lifestyle within a rural setting. The scenes I photograph are hidden in plain sight, often transient and easily dismissed, and yet in many ways they are the most concrete evidence of how changing behavior and attitudes, both individual and collective, can transform the landscape and shape our consciousness.
— Dave Hebb, Bearsville, New York
