Jeff Rich’s work focuses on water issues ranging from recreation and sustainability to exploitation and abuse. Jeff explores these subjects by using long-term photographic documentations of very specific regions of the United States. Jeff received his MFA in photography at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia in 2008. Jeff’s project “Watershed: A Survey of The French Broad River Basin” was recently awarded the 2010 Critical Mass Book Award, and will be published as a monograph in February 2012. His work has been featured on Fraction Magazine and as one of Daylight Magazine’s monthly podcasts as well as Photo-Eye’s Photographer’s Showcase. Jeff was recently named as one of the winners of the Magenta Flash Forward 2011 Emerging Photographers Competition.

Artist Statement:

A common misconception of a watershed is that it’s all about the water. While water does play a large part, the land plays an even larger role by directing the water to a common point, such as a river or ocean. Thus human impact on the land directly affects the water that runs over it. With this project I intend to highlight this relationship between the land, water, and man, within the Mississippi River watershed.

This is a long-term series of work that aims to define the Mississippi River watershed, the largest watershed in North America, in terms of its smaller pieces. I intend to document the four corners of the watershed in a series of chapters. The French Broad, and the Tennessee watersheds make up the southeastern corner of the Mississippi watershed.