Wecome to Alton, Illinois, from the series DOG TOWN, winter 2008 by Jo Ann Walters

It's hard to write about photographs, (really, it's a tough job but someone's gotta do it!).

It's especially hard to write about your own photographs. So when you read an artist's statement that's fluid and powerful, it kind of knocks the wind out of you.
This was the case when I read HHS contender Jo Ann Walters' statement about her series DOG TOWN. Since I'm pretty sure I won't be able to say it any better, here's what she wrote:

Though I have employed the well-worn mannerisms of photographic documentation the work is not only a record, per se. It is also an elegiac work of remembrance. The images are mined from my earliest recollections, and are made up of tired light, dog days and falling, rending time through the luminous reflections of winter light. Together they comprise a quiet + stoic meditation on the mineral wastes and dregs of an unsparing economy, as well as, a song of MOURNING + MEDIATION for my father and men at work in a different time and place.

She's right, isn't she? That's what these photos are (sorry, I know you only get to see one here, you'll have to take my word for it on the others). If you don't believe me or her, yet, (and I have faith that you will) you can see a little more (but not enough) of her work on her temporary website.