04/25/2026
I took these two photographs nearly twenty years apart. An experience that strangely hit me hard with the thoughts of home.
As I’ve gotten older I’ve found that I’ve become more and more homesick for the places that hold the memories of my youth.
Visiting this prison again after twenty years reminded me you can never really go back.
Back then the place was very run down and I would go and the lady would lock me in there by myself for hours and I could explore and photograph anything I wanted.
Now it’s mostly a museum, restored and roped off and tightly controlled.
I had gone back expecting it to be the way it was. Completely unchanged like the romanticized memories of my youth.
The same is true for home. I drive by the houses of my long deceased grandparents and the place is still there but the doors are locked
And the inhabitants are strangers. The curtains are new and the trees are gone.
You can still hear the laughter of people from within but none of them know how it was back then. You’re now a stranger in the place that made you. It looks the same but time has betrayed you.