Budd Street started out as a place of transition for me. It was a block I would live on just to save money on rent. It was a place that I biked quickly to and quickly away from. I questioned the homes realtors renovated to seduce college students, once empty plots of land that now glittered with dewy Solo cups and crusty remains of late night food deliveries. 

This low-key block of Budd St. seemed to be slowly stripped of its authenticity, and by all means my shiny new house was partly responsible. 
 

Like all unfamiliar situations in life I relied on my camera to ease myself into the environment that I initially shrugged off. I placed all responsibility on the mechanical workings of a box to start conversations, to be a safety blanket for my shyness that could lead me down any street that sparked my short fuse of attention. Fancying myself as an explorer, I walked out my front door and down the block. 

Over the course of a year I watched a house burn from the inside, and a group of college students and locals alike collect money to put the owner back on his feet. I managed to trip over a deflated basketball and, despite desperately trying to hide my bloody leg, I was asked by every stranger if I was alright. The growing geraniums amongst the loafs of concrete suggested that Budd St. is not just a place of transition made up of 10-month leases, it is home for many Philadelphians, including myself. 

The Hasselblad camera along with black and white film, has a way of transforming seemingly mundane objects into rather surreal ones. Trash begins to take on crustacean like shapes, buildings begin to float and subjects develop into characters out of a novel. While my photos began to take form, I became attached to the neighborhood and interactions I was apart of and witnessed.