Joe Pug is a songwriter whose songs are crafted with big heavy words, like stones turned over from a plow in the field. When delivered, I can nearly catch his words in my hands, ideas whose weight I can lean into, or pull against, like the reigns of some docile but untrained animal. Aesthetics and emotion have a way of ignoring the boundaries of mediums. Sometimes what I hear, or what I see, or even who I know, as shapeless as the idea might be, takes up forms and space and colors as my understanding emerges. Photography isn’t as much about recording the things we see as it is a way for me – for all of us – to give dimension and structure to our otherwise intangible compulsions. Photographing people helps us form – and project – our own understanding of those we point our cameras at.
See more images of Joe at lookat.toddroeth.com.