STATEMENT David Simonton, Raleigh, NC

David Simonton records for us the old North Carolina at its moment

of passing.

- Kate Dobbs Ariail

The Independent Weekly, Durham

Growing up in the Northeast I saw the South, and developed a sense of it, through other peoples' photographs. Now I live in North Carolina and am coming to know it myself.

I learned about photography by looking at pictures, and by attending to what others had to say about the medium: about the power of the photographic image to make, and to leave, an impression; about the dual (and often dueling) nature of the photograph itself: a work of art? a document? Dorothea Lange said that a picture "worked" only when both elements were present.

And I was struck when Walker Evans spoke of "wonderful secrets" in certain places that only he could capture.

But it was Manuel Alvarez Bravo who offered me a straightforward way to consider the medium. He stated in a late interview, "When one takes a photograph, one doesn't think about making a statement, but rather about creating something visual which can later bear a meaning. The meaning of the photograph depends upon the viewer's interpretation, but not necessarily the photographer's."

For forty years I have photographed with the goal of making compelling, well-crafted pictures, inspired by the dedication of my predecessors. For the past twenty years I have photographed North Carolina. The meaning I derive from the work, well... that would be telling secrets.

[These twenty-five images belong to the ongoing series "Photographs

from North Carolina."]