Rural America

Portland-based photographer Brendon Burton:

Throughout North America, relics of past inhabitants dot fields and foothills, glimpsing complex lives. Dilapidated farmhouses, churches, and grain elevators stand amid the stark, magnificent landscape in areas that seem to exist in a different world and operate on their own time. While people are typically absent from Burton’s images, the human impact on the land is everywhere. He approaches these places with a keen and admiring curiosity, reveling in layered, fraught, and sometimes unknowable histories.

This year, Burton has collected a decade’s worth of photographs into a new book titled Epitaph, which seeks to “unravel the knot of mystery” he says in a statement, “…shedding light on unseen histories and buried past lives.” The book is scheduled for release in early October and is available for pre-order now on his website. You can also keep up with Burton’s travels on Instagram.