Shawne Brown (b. 1977, Kingsport, TN) studied photography at East Tennessee State University with photographer Mike Smith, working with him on assignments for the New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, the Washington Post and Newsweek, and printing for his galleries around the country. In 2002 he was invited by the Nashville Cultural Arts Project to photograph the site of the former Neuhoff meatpacking plant before innovative plans for renovation took place. He exhibited this work in 2003. Afterwards, he returned home and resumed his studies, receiving his MFA from ETSU in 2008. While working on his thesis and photographing near his home in northeast Tennessee, he made intermittent trips to the geodetic center of the continent in central Kansas. The two resulting projects from this period are Sinsabaw Hollow (TN) and Solomon Valley (KS). Brown has exhibited his work in major cities across the country. He is a member of the Appalachian Photography Project and was recently involved with a show of prominent photographs from Tennessee at the Brief Gallery in Nashville where he currently lives. He has initiated a long-term photographic project on the city.