The photographs I was searching for were documentary but rest ambiguous and inconclusive at the same time. I was not trying to make a final statement. The images come from heart and mind alike. They are wrought from strong convictions shaped by my own experience of living in the midst of a sometimes deceitfully familiar America – a very personal departure point to explore a very public subject. There was no common language for the confusions and fears triggered by 9/11, the ongoing wars and a crumbling economy. It was my ambition to give this America a face, to create a document, a visual commentary on the state of the nation