I once found a severed pig’s head on the sidewalk. There were flies in its eye sockets, and it was surrounded by a splatter trail of blood. I don’t know why or how it got there, but there it was - fact indisputable.

The sight of it jolted me out of my thoughts for a moment. Out of that endless loop of self-involved mind chatter, to see that the here-and-now had more compelling offerings. I didn’t have a camera on me then, and still regret it.

These photos are what followed, and are perhaps an attempt to reclaim, the pig’s head incident. They are random sights found during routine commutes in my hometown Chicago or other cities. The photos themselves are fairly meaningless records of those discoveries. They are reminders that there are wonderfully strange and beautiful things to be found everywhere if I care enough to pay attention. In that sense the act of taking photographs is a hedge against forgetting this fact.

Photo book available here: www.blurb.com/b/4548899-fraught-spots