Thank G-d For Mississippi

Thank G-d for Mississippi: Summersville Lake possibly on Whippoorwill Cliffs, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Green Hole, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Black Water Falls, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Sliding Rock, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Birch Run, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Knapp Creek, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Black Water Falls, WV, 2009
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Thank G-d for Mississippi: Bull Run, WV also called Blue Hole, 2009
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For the photographic series Thank G-d for Mississippi, Becker returned to his home state of West Virginia to photograph the area’s most common sites of fatal or near-fatal jumps. Using a boom to suspend his camera ten feet over these edges and cliffs, he photographed the view only seen by individuals once they have jumped. The photograph suspends us in the moment between decision and result, arresting time between life and death. This work represents the individual implications of the depressed socio-economics of West Virginia, the “canary in the mine” for social conditions that later reverberate throughout the nation. [1]

[1] West Virginia continually ranks second lowest (above Mississippi) in most national socio-economic measures, including a correlative high rate of suicides, inspiring common use of the phrase “Thank G-d for Mississippi.”