Farmers for the future

My Photo scholarship 2011 entry

Worldwide | Thursday, November 3, 2011 | 5 photos

With a passion for living and learning, I’ve grown up using photography as a means to share, document and discover new things about myself and about what surrounds me.

The photos in this journal were taken during my time as a B.A. student in South Carolina when I began documenting the fight over Captain Sam's Spit, an area connected to Kiawah Island, SC. The photos reflect the struggles between small business vs. corporate interests and environmental preservation vs. development. Rosebank Farms co-owner and farmer, Sidi Limehouse, wages in a costly and drawn out battle against the Kiawah Development Partners to protect the area from development. Despite local opposition and the area being protected by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, the development giant has taken the battle to the federal level in hopes of getting the go ahead for future development. After decades of lining the road to Kiawah with signs about farm activities, Limehouse was forced by penalty of legal fees to remove his protest signs from the roadside. Limehouse found a loophole and now hangs signs on his old John Deere tractor, which he keeps parked where the fencepost once stood.

Since finishing my M.A. in The Netherlands this August, I have continued my love for documentary photography by starting the My Main Street Project – a social, worldwide initiative aimed at documenting our changing cityscapes. Inspired by my world travels and most recently by my trek across the US (from IN to Vancouver BC), the project wishes to tap into the social and collaborative nature of the web to document transformations of the quaint and bustling. I yearn for new experiences and for gaining insight from those around me, and this scholarship would be the true test and fulfillment of my long withstanding dream to work with National Geographic.