I am currently visiting my family in Kinston, NC, a small town in eastern NC dotted with tobacco fields and stands of tall pines.
I spent every summer here on my grandparent's tobacco farm when I was growing up.
I loved the long, hot lazy summers on the farm: sitting on my grandmother's wrap around porch sharing ice cream cones with the hounds, hoeing endless rows of green beans, hauling irrigation pipes, eating ice cold watermelon cooled down in big washtubs of ice after a day in the fields, getting library books from the Book Mobile that came by once a week and parked in the field by the train tracks, sleeping at nights under the tin roof crackling from the heat.
While walking around the farm taking photos I realized where my love of old things came from, especially my love of all things with the patina of age. It was startling to realize that much of the imagery I use can be directly traced to the farm: cool round eggs gathered every morning from the hens, crows scavenging in the mown fields, thorny vines from my grandmother's flower gardens.
Below are some images taken around the farm:

  my grandfather's Ford truck

a side barn filled with old hand tools and oxen traces

my grandfather's favorite tractor

the cart that used to haul burlap sacks of cured tobacco leaves

the pond on the back of the farm