Jim Korpi

Grave Digger. Cheshire, Ohio 2007

Jim Korpi started his path in photography during his university years when he worked part time as a writer/photographer at the Portsmouth Herald in Portsmouth, NH. Following his graduation from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in English/Journalism, Jim served as a Visual Journalism fellow at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. He later joined the Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire as a photography intern. In addition to Jim’s work with community newspapers, he has done freelance assignments for the The New York Times, The Washington Post and Associated Press. In September of 2005, Jim received a Fulbright Scholarship to Jordan where he worked on a documentary photographic project and studied Arabic. His photographs were exhibited by the city of Amman, Jordan, in a large installation at the city’s cultural square. Presently, Jim is working on his master’s degree in the School of Visual Communications at Ohio University.

About the Photograph:

Dave Stanley has been digging graves at the Gravel Hill Cemetery in Cheshire, Ohio, for the past year. He was laid off from the Community Action Center and was asked to take the cemetery job. The town of Cheshire has been bought out by the Gavin Power Plant. Some older community members will stay until their end. Stanley says once the older folks die off in the town the cemetery will die with them. This photograph is part “Coal and Consequences”, Jim’s long term personal project about coal and it’s effects on the environment, people and communities.