Shaffer Photography

These 28 Acres is a series that focuses on my heritage and the history of where I grew up.

When shooting, I focused on the landscape around my childhood home and the history that has been left behind there in structures and objects. Revisiting these places becomes important and shows how the land itself has changed and stood the test of time and nature. Pairing these newer photographs with older photographs of my ancestors in diptychs has helped to create an image of what has passed away with time and embodies the idea of a different time period and a different kind of world from what we are used to. All of my pairings are done formally and based on elements from each individual photograph so that they are connected in composition rather than place.

    I created this work because I have always been fascinated with where I came from and older time periods. I know very little about my ancestors other than that I grew up where they lived and that the land has been passed down through three generations, over 101 years. Focusing on these facts, I felt that in some way I could learn about them and how life used to be in this area. There’s no written information about my family and stories have mostly been passed down through word of mouth, my father has been a great source of information for me to use in my process. It is important for me to research and photograph this part of my life because it is an essential part of my family’s history.

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