After The Noise - Josh Hall Photos

In the town where I grew up, the crime rate is over double the national average. From the attempted murder that happened next door to my childhood home, to being followed at night, I worry for the people that I love.

Time drifts forward, covering the scars that are left behind. What once was chaos becomes a memory, and the land learns to breathe again. I return to these sites not to reopen old wounds, but to see how they've healed. How the grass has grown back, the air still carries the sound of ordinary life, the sun crests the horizon again. One moment of violence or tragedy shouldn't define what a location has to offer to people who go there. We should see these places for what they are, not what they have been.

We shouldn't fear these places because of the bad things that have happened there, but embrace the change and see it for what it currently is and what it will be. Even if the stories fade, the land quietly carries its own memory, waiting for us to listen with compassion instead of fear.