And now, we get to my favorite question of them all.

“Liam,” they all say, “what the heck does See America Right mean?”

Well, it means nothing. It also means everything. They are words, after all!

The fact is I don’t really know myself. So why don’t we try to work it out together?

For starters, it’s a song by The Mountain Goats whose title I shamelessly stole. One could thus make some confusing parallel between the stolen title and the prevasive kleptomaniacal society that is “AMERIKA.” Maybe it’s sone commentary on how the conservative right in America has shaped the way we view our lives. Well, spoiler alert, it’s neither of those things and the truth is that it does actually mean something.

See America Right was the title of my Senior Exhibition at The Putney School. At that time, I chose it for two reasons. One, I really liked The Mountain Goats. I still really like The Mountain Goats. But two, that project was very personal and introspective for me. It took place during the spring of my senior year, and, well, forgive me for being crass but I spent most of my senior year wanting to eat shit and die. The work that I made was symbolic of the emotional and mental hardship I dealt with and the triumph that it was for me to come out on the other side of the tunnel.

This body of work contains many of the images I shot for my exhibition, as well as a handful of images that I feel are similarly impactful for me. Maybe, one day, when I’m rich and famous and cool, these images will be the foundation of a grand photographic memoir. But I doubt I will ever be rich or famous or cool, not to mention all three, so they will probably just sit here and look pretty.

-LAD