I started working on this project after a series of events. I was given a large amount of medium format film left over from another photographer Tom Robertson's photo project on Citizens Bank in Fayette, and almost a year later I also acquired a medium format Mamiya camera from Dorris Killingsworth, a longtime Fayette photographer who spent years documenting its people. Wanting to do a project with the film and the camera, this coincided with a Washington Post article on Fayette that examined race, politics, representation, and belonging. Through all that, there was also a Rails to Trails project that would better connect Ward 4 to downtown. The trail and the article on my mind, I grabbed my M645, some film, and started walking, not knowing it would lead to a multi-year photo project I'm still shooting today. For the first time, really seeing a side of Fayette I often didn't travel through.

The images that follow are of that side. Ward 4, a part of Fayette shaped by who the town chose to invest in, and who it didn't.

Photographs by Scott Gravlee