In this interview at Bombsite the American photographer Mitch Epstein say that the genesis of his American Power book arose from being hims commissioned by the New York Times Sunday Magazine to do a piece about the small town of Cheshire, Ohio.

It sits in the shadow of one of the largest coal-fired power plants in the US, owned by American Electric Power (AEP). There were lots of environmental issues with the plant’s emissions. So the company decided to buy everybody out. Erase the town. I spent a couple weeks there, on two trips, and there was one experience in particular that I couldn’t shake off. About a dozen hold-outs wouldn’t sell to AEP, one of whom was Beulah Hern. She was around 80. Her nickname was Boots.

Meeting Boots and watching the Cheshire houses being demolished were what got me started on this project.

Mitch Epstein, Mwydok coal mine, Wyoming, USA , 2008, from the American Power series

Epstein says that he faced harassment from local and federal law enforcement agents whenever I went to shoot in the vicinity of a corporate energy production site, despite being on public property.

The project began about energy, but quickly became about power in all its dimensions—not only voltage power, but governmental and corporate power. The power of nature. The power of community. An artist’s power.