Back in 1994 I spent the summer traveling in France after completing a college exchange program in Annecy. During the trip I took a series of photographs that would become the basis for a book called France: Then & Now: Journey Identity. The book is an over-sized handmade case containing 60 unique 16″ x 20″ photographic prints derived from 6 cm x 9 cm negative film. The are individually matted and are held in the right side of the open book (as in a portfolio case). On the left, there are over-sized collage pages made from my journals and material that I collected during my travels in France.

This book is in the form of a traveling case, or trunk, and speaks to the idea of “taking a trip to find yourself”. Many of the photographs explore the juxtaposition of ancient and contemporary structures and led me to think about how this affects the construction of identity. Of course, I am from the United States where there ar e few ancient structures amidst contemporary life.

Here is a slide show that features many of the photographs in the case. The digital scans do not do justice to the involved split filtering process that I used to hand print these images … alas, at least they are now online to share!