Photo Journal Monday: Jeff Smudde
© Jeff Smudde
Images and words by Jeff Smudde
This work is focusing on looking for Midwestern familiarity, using snow and the water as the "stage" of presenting this theme, as it abstracts the scene to a more clear view of the subject, reducing the "loudness" of complex compositions into simplified, more minimal scenes.
© Jeff Smudde
The snow, the bitter air and the barren trees of Winter resonate with me. Balling up snow to see how far I can throw; walking through the rushing waves of the lake that foam up with the ice as they caress on the shoreline. Freezing feet are a sign to me of this short time that I feel more close to home, despite the fragility of the snow and the heaviness of the pursuit of warmth.
These dunes, these trees, these waves covered in the ash of frozen water nudge me to see things in a new manner. The vibrancy that is the winter of the North Midwest makes me stop in my tracks and think fondly of those memories in the winter with those people I may not speak to again, but wish them well in their journeys through life. It reminds me of home, a kind of familiarity I haven’t felt much like before.
© Jeff Smudde
Four days in early 2020 were spent in these snows. A brief road trip with friends to northern Michigan to visit a friend who lived there, and moved away shortly thereafter. Upon the planning of this short visit, I knew that I wanted to photograph the trip on film. I was in a new area of a state I hadn’t been to since I was small. The winter scenery that was vacant of tourists (as tourists come out of hibernation like bears) captured me in an emotional and spiritual way. These photographs are a cut of the many I captured within those four days, that I believe capture sensations of Midwestern familiarity I felt while in northern Michigan.
© Jeff Smudde
