Photography is a tricky medium. It's one of those things in the world that everyone knows a little about, but fewer of us might realize how it can shape or dissolve our ideas about certain events. I make my own photographs as a way to better understand my relationship to the natural world. The natural world is a common denominator among people, so my photographs are also a way to understand our collective relationship to the natural world.

This set of images presents some of my work along with four other photographers. Over the years of making my own work, I have taken direct and indirect cues from each of them. Edward Muybridge, Edward Steichen, Edward S. Curtis, and Ed Rushca all pictured The West, a certain part of the natural world rich in folklore and illusion, in vastly different styles and for very contrasting reasons.