Theo Anderson is a photographer based in Allentown, Pennsylvania.  He graduated from Temple University in 1974 with a  B.A. in political science before attending graduate school at Lehigh University to pursue a Doctorate of Arts in government.  While in graduate school, he bought his first camera and built a darkroom in the closet of his apartment.  Self-taught, Anderson’s passion for photography grew to become his life’s work.  He left graduate school in 1978 to begin a career as a photographer, and later that year, he had his first one person show, The Inclement Weather Portfolio, at Lehigh University

Over the past 30 years, Anderson’s projects have taken him to Asia, Europe, and throughout North and Central America.  His major body of work, Where’s Joe? The Ghost of Bethlehem Steel (seen here), was shot as an archeological documentation of the buildings that once built modern America.

Through his art, Anderson explores the transition of the human experience.  The photographs are not so much about place as they are about transformation.  Deindustrialization and the resulting artifacts are visited.  The photographs are often metaphors for the post-industrial world.  The context of everyday life is used by Anderson in his visual exploration.