After months of intense research and preparation, I embarked on a 28-day journey through the American Midwest—a landscape I had never truly experienced. From the beginning, it was clear how different this part of America felt.

There were no towering mountains, only an endless flat horizon stretched beneath a restless sky. It was a place caught between solitude and boundless openness, where time seemed to linger.

In the Midwest, I confronted a personal challenge: to document something distinct in a region often dismissed as monotonous or unremarkable. I sought out old visuals, and places imbued with history, and approached them with fresh eyes.

Whether repopulated, abandoned, or entirely forgotten, these spaces carried a resonance that demanded exploration.

Along the way, I captured the lives of people who, though strangers at first, became essential to my storytelling.

They opened doors to a deeper understanding of the region. Through their faces and the environments they inhabited, I discovered a vital connection to the land and its stories.

These encounters transformed my desire to document, fueling a passion to preserve not only their narratives but also the enduring spirit of the Midwest itself.

Beneath the vast, prairie skies

we stand, stars sprinkled like dust

across faded barns,

cornfields whispering secrets

of the old land.

Each stalk, a star;

together, a constellation forms.

In these quiet towns,

galaxies swirl unseen,

where traditions spin slowly

out of time's reach.

Captured in frames

the amber and green,

before they dim,

before they dissolve into the breach.

Diane Scrofani