Welcome to the first post of 52 Photographers Vol. 3! This inaugural post features the work of Michael Sherwin, based in West Virginia. For nine years, Michael worked in the American West, during which time he completed a large body of work titled Vanishing Points.

The project sprang out of a photograph Michael made of a local shopping center, the Suncrest Towne Center, in his neighborhood which had been built over an ancient burial ground of the Monongahela tribe. At the time, he had no expectations that much would come out of it, but as time went on, he learned more about the Native history in the area and greater region and eventually a project began to be manifested.

This important body of work confronts the viewer with some of the darker parts of America's past. The respect, and reverence, and sometimes lamentation Michael has for these places is evident in the photographs. The technical and formal beauty of the photographs draw the viewer in, while the content of the images, or the history of the scenes depicted therein can be quite grim, a duality Michael often attempts to achieve. He mentions this concept of duality in a few interviews: the one previously mentioned, and specifically in the case of the Suncrest Towne Center:

In a relatively short period of time, the Suncrest Towne Center grew into a bustling shopping center complete with all the usual, and recognizable, storefronts and signage. It was anywhere America, yet at the same time it held on to a mysterious and spiritually significant past. This duality fascinated me.

Last year, a Kickstarter was funded to publish a book, and it is now available for pre-order here. You can check out more of Michael's work on his website, and follow him on Instagram.