Selections from Pallor Mortis, Texas

Photobook, 2026

Pallor Mortis, Texas is a photo book detailing the slowing, congealing, and eventual cessation of collective care in the white communities of the Hill Country. Pallor mortis isn’t referential to a specific place I visited or photographed, but rather a stage of being during death where blood begins to stop circulating in the body. This stage of being is more visible in those with paler skin- a small detail, but one I felt aptly described the unique fracturing of interpersonal relationships in white Southerners, especially amidst the level of political turmoil our nation is experiencing on a daily basis. 

I spent a great deal of time with Texas-based photography work from the Library of Congress before shooting any work for this book, specifically media from the Great Depression. I found subject matter dealing with objects and work equipment to be deeply compelling, beginning to question how our relationship to objects speaks to our larger relationship to systems of governing and care. 

My interest was primarily to think about why this phenomenon I perceived was occurring, and how I could express that narrative feeling through objects with the uncertainty of the moment still present in the work. I decided to create a set of limitations: (1) only shoot in black and white, (2) only shooting within the boundaries of the Texas Hill Country, and (3) only photographing discarded places or objects. 

The objects’ abandonment / discardment spoke to me as a larger allegory to the South as a political landscape and Southerners as seen by society. Due to the amount of political and economic suppression perpetrated on communities, the diversity and varied cultural values of the South are often flattened. Notable influences, such as Christianity, become heavily associated with whiteness instead of the immigrant populations that maintain a strong spiritual community here. Cowboy culture has been stolen by whiteness to such a degree that both the original Vaquero and broader Southern cultures have expressed frustration with the flattening of meaning on a national scale. 

Even more insidious is the influence of the Southern strategy, post-1965. Intended specifically as a political strategy to promote racial and social division, the Southern strategy was used for political gain. My extensive research into these topics became the genesis point of my interest in working class, white communities in Texas specifically. 

The final collection of images is a vignette: where we’ve been, where we are, and where we’re going politically in the South- told through discarded spaces and objects. I see both the degradation and simultaneous potential in myself, my communities, and my home in these images. They are uncertain of their use, value, and future, maybe not even confident in their existence. By capturing them, building their narrative, and seeing their potential beyond what they are, I am bringing about these same questions in ourselves as Southerners, and Americans as a whole.