THE PASSING RING 1996-2010

The Passing Ring is an extensive portrait of one of the last nomadic tribes in America, the Culpepper & Merriweather Great Combined Circus. A traditional one-ring Big Top show, with winter quarters in Hugo, Oklahoma, C&M travels everyday, for 8 months of the year. Over the past 13 years, I have had the good fortune to photograph the show through much of California, Montana, Iowa, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Minnesota and Arizona.

While seemingly familiar, the Circus is an elusive character, rife with complexities and contradictions. My photographs fall into a few categories: portraits of the many unique individuals whose paths have converged under the Big Top; images that highlight impressionistic, archetypal elements of this age-old spectacle; mundane moments in daily life on the road; landscapes of and around the ever changing circus village. By photographing all these elements and resisting only one visual style, I hope to illuminate the spirit of the Circus, yet in a way that strays from a traditional documentary.  It's against the odds that the show will survive in this era of technology, and the crowds are growing smaller. Nonetheless, Culpepper & Merriweather persists, moving quietly though the countryside and tiny towns west of the Mississippi, arriving each day just after dawn. Twenty four hours later, the caravan pulls away leaving barely a trace, save some imprints on the ground and in the minds of those who came to see the show.

In addition to exhibiting, I am currently working on a book of photographs.