There’s just a week of mornings left for opportunities like this, in my 90-year-old farmhouse on this street in my hometown. I grew up around the corner, bought this house almost 10 years ago, and moved here with Pilar for an adventure in 2011. We gave it 5 irretrievable years before admitting that this is just not the right town for us, and never will be.

I love my old house. I think I must have dreamed of it my whole life – a classic craftsman, from an era of midwest tradition, with windows, old glass, woodwork and character that feels like a home and conjures up a history of nights of music and years of life. I hate to abandon the familiarity of tradition and comfort from a time that preceded my own childhood yet inhabits my dreams, and would carry it with me if I could. The world inside these walls, the plays of light on the surfaces, rippled through panes of century-old glass, orangey sun on wood floors and sharp cuts of sparkling light on crystal doorknobs, don’t look the same in new home construction. There’s a quality to the air in an old house like this, of echoes and substance and past conversations, that hasn’t had time to accumulate in new-built homes. I’ve tried in my way to capture that sense with my cameras, photographing the patterns and shadows, the telltale expressions of decades of home that hide in the nooks and crannies of rooms, in the layers of paint, in the cut edge of sunlight, especially at the beginning and the end of most days.

[ M9 | 35mm Summicron ASPH ]