The Home, War series was inspired by images sent to me via e-mail from my younger brother on a tour in Iraq.  Every couple of days I would open my email and browse pictures of jets silhouetted by the desert sunset, a convoy of hulking tanks, an abandoned building with a gaping missile hole, or an exotic face-hugging camel spider.  Most of the photos were poor quality and a merely meant as a reflection of his daily life to share with his friends and family back home.  While the pictures themselves were beautiful, they were also a reminder of where he was and why he was there.

At the same time Josh was in Iraq, I was visiting my parents in “the homeland,” (as we jokingly refer to the city we grew up in).  I began taking night photographs with my cell phone as a documentation to send to my brother to remind him of home.  Suddenly, streetlights began to look like explosions, and the noise and graininess of the cell phone began to reference the familiar look of night goggles used in war. These photos evolved into the Home, War series of desolate urban landscapes that could be here or there.  Home or War.