Tuskegee National Forest is the epitome of duality: A place where beautiful and ugly mingle, where nature collides with man. It doesn’t take long to see the direct impact humans have had on the landscape in Tuskegee.
Roughly twenty minutes south of Auburn, Alabama, the national forest sits at just 11,000 acres, making it the smallest in the United States. Once one of the most eroded and unusable tracts of farmland in the state, the land comprising the national forest area was purchased during the 1930s as part of restoration projects across the Southeast. At the time of purchase by the federal government, only 10-12% was suitable for farming.
This region has been my home for the past six years, making it the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. Photographing became a way of understanding this new place that I found myself in. Learning about the history of a region and watching the changes it undergoes is important as a photographer as it’s our responsibility to record them.