My Work
About Merle...
Travel has always been an important part of my life and my photography was, at first, merely an attempt to create a record of my travels. Just ‘travel photography’ was all I was after, and it’s still part of what you will see in my work. With each trip I made I discovered how diverse the human experience was, how much would be missing from my life had I simply stayed home, and I wanted to capture these new adventures. Yet, as I continued to travel and photograph, I became increasingly aware that some of these places that had so moved me were being obliterated by popular culture, technology, and the global reach of consumerism. Like much else in our lives, travel destinations, even the most remote, were being trivialized and turned into commodities. And like Dodos and Dinosaurs, cultures were rapidly becoming extinct. The planet was turning into one, giant travel mall. Peoples and languages and wonder were dying.
My photography is an attempt to record what is left.
