Juxtapoz Magazine – The Locusts: A Conversation With Jesse Lenz

When photographer and publisher Jesse Lenz first settled down on a farm in rural Ohio with his family he was forced to reimagine long-held beliefs about process, practice, art, and life. After several years of living and traveling North American in an airstream, he discovered a different sort of movement and change. As his children’s imaginations ran wild in the fields, finding and creating worlds amongst and alongside plants, insects, and animals, Lenz’s own eyes opened to a whole new way of seeing the world around him. Remaining in one place in no way necessitates being static (something many of us has been forced to reconcile with this year), and in fact can reveal to us what we’ve long forgotten. With his first major monograph, The Locusts, Lenz finds that the magic of childhood is the perfect vehicle with which to understand change, whether it’s seasonal cycles of birth and death or the natural imperfections of simply being alive in this world.