Reed Mattison is a photographer and writer from Bowling Green, Kentucky. He earned his bachelor’s degree in photojournalism from Western Kentucky University. Reed grew up in southern Kentucky spending his childhood outdoors on family farms, spring creeks, and the karst hills that would come to influence his visual aesthetic. His semi-rural upbringing and education in the immigrant resettlement site of Bowling Green provided a racially and culturally diverse community that was formative to his photographic philosophy and class consciousness.
These images come from the body of work to and from. It is a personal look at my long-distance relationship with my home in Kentucky. My photojournalism career pushed me far West away from the family, culture and geography that shaped me. During my infrequent visits home I aim to photograph all that is changing without me. My aging parents, the urban sprawl of my once-small town, and the beautiful seasons the South experiences. to and from is not nostalgic, it is a yearning. It is the antithesis of manifest destiny. This work was accepted by the Chico Book Review and Fotofilmic Annual Mentorship Program and will take the form of my first monograph.
