Issue link: http://maconmagazine.uberflip.com/i/1530620
December 2024/January 2025 | maconmagazine.com 107 See it! Macon Arts Gallery (486 1st St.), January 2025. For more information, visit maconartsalliance.org You're from Macon, but you're frequently traveling. How has that broadened your technique, or changed how you take pictures? That's kind of like a tail chasing a dog. My technique has followed travel. I think that traveling gives me ways to see new and different things, and to spark my interest to photograph. If I'm just walking around Macon, I don't think of that as being unique. Now, somebody from somewhere else traveling here would think a picture of Macon was interesting. One of my first books was Back Alleys of Macon. I get bored very easily, so I have to go to strange places to take pictures. What would make an audience member want to see your show at Macon Arts Alliance? It will be called "People of the World." That tells it all. You'll see pictures like these of people living all over the world, all seven continents, 80 plus countries. It'll broaden your horizons. I've done several shows before, but this one I like the most because it combines travel with a connection to people. Your fine art photography book is in our holiday gift guide (pg. 45). What inspired the book? This was a pandemic project, stuck at home, couldn't travel. The book is called Georgia's Courthouses. Georgia has the second largest number of counties of any state, second only to Texas. It was set up in horse and buggy days. You'd set up a county seat, the next county seat had to be in a day's ride. We've got a bunch of historic courthouses, many of which are still being preserved. I took up drone photography at the same time. I was camping in state parks because nothing else was open, and I'd get up for sunrise, drive to a courthouse, take some pictures, and go home. Then do the same thing at sunset. It's turned out to be popular in attorney's offices, history buffs, architecture enthusiasts, schools. Where's your favorite place to travel? It's not where you're going. It depends on what you want. You want the beach? Do you want to get away from Americans? Do you want mountains? I've been to Uzbekistan a couple of times. I've been to Saudi Arabia, Greenland, Antarctica. I wouldn't say anything is my favorite. The thing is to just go places. ABOVE A man in Miami reminisces about his former life in Cuba. LEFT A rice farmer in Bhutan chats with Hertwig. A young boy observes in Chongqing, China.