Born on the Bayou, via Minneapolis.

I’ve always had a strange fascination with Louisiana – it’s curious that it has such a hold on my imagination — considering I’ve never even traveled to the state.

Somehow, the bayou, or anything that remotely sounds akin to that area, conjures up danger. Danger in the form of dark, moss laden swamps, infested with alligators. Danger in the form of oily, musclebound convicts, circa 1952, on the lam from the law. Or just the irrational danger of walking into a landscape and never finding your way out. Trapped by nature in a place that is as alien as the moon. Pure Stephen King.

When I first laid eyes on this photo series of Thomas Strand’s, I was a little more than taken aback. I was freaked out. How did a kid from Minneapolis end up with images that were pulled from my imagination? That were culled directly from my dreams? I am called back to these photographs over and over again – like a train wreck on the side of the highway, I can’t stop looking, I always slow down. And secretly, I love what I see!