Christopher Woods – Five Photographs
Artist’s Statement
I was a writer long before I ever thought of being a photographer. Oh, I had always loved photographs, but since I was already a writer, I thought that was vice enough. Then, after a cancer diagnosis and during a lengthy treatment period, I picked up a camera that belonged to my wife, who is an excellent equine photographer. Because I spend much of my time in rural Texas, I began taking pictures of the land and the places around me.
These particular photographs are from the rural world. I try to capture the beauty and the silence that is omnipresent in the various subjects. There is a vastness in nature, something so many of us have lost a sense of in our urban living. There is also the haunting feeling that comes in wide open places when we visit them. Our own selves can seem diminished, or exalted, by the experience. I am especially drawn to abandoned places and houses. I can often feel the presence of other lives from before in these places, and I try to capture a sense of those lost spirits, the laughter and the silences, that once belonged to them. Those spirits, like our own, wish to be remembered. A photograph is probably insufficient for this task, but it is my way of attempting to acknowledge them.
Christopher Woods is a writer, teacher and photographer who lives in Houston and Chappell Hill, Texas. He has published a novel, The Dream Patch, a prose collection, Under a Riverbed Sky, and a book of stage monologues for actors, Heart Speak. His work has appeared in The Southern Review, New England Review, New Orleans Review, Columbia and Glimmer Train, among others. He is currently compiling a book of photography prompts for writers, From Vision To Text. More at: christopherwoods.zenfolio.com.