Nature Returns II, originally uploaded by jkorpi.

A rusting tank lays in a marsh where a coal mine once existed in Carbondale, Ohio. The signs of these mining camps are strangly hard to notice. One way I’ve learned how to locate the heads of these formers mines is to follow the rusty colored water until it leads you to places like these.
At this particular site I was amazed to see large pieces of machinery made of thick metal almost rusted down to nothing. It’s humbling to think nature can make something like this disappear in less than 200 years.

Archive Image of the Week, originally uploaded by jkorpi.

In an attempt to clean up my archive, I’ve run into a bunch of old images that haven’t seen the light of day. I’ll post a new image from the forming achive every week. Ask questions if you have any.
This image was taken while I was working on a story about migrant workers from Jamaica who work in New Hampshire during the harvest season.

Ewok Hunts, originally uploaded by jkorpi.

Ewok dreams of the days when she used to roam outside the house, the days when birds, mice and all other critters shared the same space. These former outdoor-cat days were the glorious ones, when her chances at hunting were much better. Now our porch is guarded. No squirrel wants to play his luck at grabbing a fallen seed from the bird feeder if Ewok is on the prowl. Annah hopes one day Ewok will snag some poor unsuspecting bird so she can get it out of her system.

Fading Into Nature, originally uploaded by jkorpi.

In starting a small documentary project on the way nature can return to areas once inhabited by man, I was looking for places that have an apocalyptic feel. I’m in search of images that look as though man has disappeared from the planet and nature is allowed to return. What would it look like if man were to perish? It’s said that after 200,000 years all signs of man would crumble.

Luiz Santos, originally uploaded by jkorpi.

“I’m not a rock star. I’m just wrapped in a flag,” Luiz said after he looked at this photograph of himself and someone said, “Luiz is a rock star!”
For a portrait class I was assigned to make an image of my friend Luiz Santos. One of the first things I remembered when meeting Luiz was the confusion I had between his name and what I imagined to be his ethnicity. His name was cleary Latin, but I had guessed his background to be of Filipino origin. It didn’t line up, so I asked him why the Latin sounding name.
For three centuries the Philippines had been colonized by the Spanish and then after the Spanish-American war by the United States. Luiz’s name carries this colonial legacy.
Luiz had told me that even though he has been to the Philippines to visit family, he identifies with being an American more than anything else. For the portrait I wanted to somehow show how an American identity wrapped tightly around him to cover up his ethnic background.
As an American its hard to identify with an ethnicity. We’re all the children of immigrants.