George Washington said, “I had rather be on my farm than be emperor of the world.” I guess George had a pretty good idea of what his own home meant to him, or perhaps he had a sense of what being a world leader would entail. For most of us, the ideas of house and home occupy the same space, both mentally and geographically. For some though, the two have been splintered and never quite reconnected.

A few months ago I left a town on the west coast that had held me for thirteen years, and a job that had kept me anchored for twelve years; it was, for all intents and purposes, home. The idea of home as a place has always been a sticky point for me. Growing up in a divorced family and making my way as a bi-coastal child I have had a fractured sense of where exactly home is. Lately I have been looking through my camera at the house as a symbol for the idea of home. It’s interesting how a house, over the course of its life, can be a home to so many different people. It’s also interesting how even with out a concrete sense of where home is, we can still miss it from time to time.

Text and photos by Travis Upright.