Wanderer, documenter, writer, never-sit-still-er, lover, dog-owner, human.

Born in rain and destined for the desert, I’ve never been able to stay put for long. My drive to see humanity in the wild along with my fear of forgetting have led me to keep one eye in the viewfinder and the other peering forward. I left the comforts of home and watched the landscape fade to brown, fueled by a deep connection and love I’d never known the likes of. In the midst of the southwest desert I found beauty in vastness, a place to rest, and a warm body to hold in the middle of the night. 

I am an eldest daughter, a born and oft reluctant leader, tasked with growing up in favor of childhood. My passion lies in the abundant well of the Mother archetype, a yearning even deeper than memorializing the lives we lead. When I take pictures I take them selfishly, hoping that each woman can see how their child has grown, how time has been unkind and stolen away the baby they held at midnight, when the world slept around them. My birth and rebirth has been within my medium, my womanhood centered on the creation of life and the quiet dismissal of death, saving each memory as it comes and goes before my eyes. There are few things death cannot touch, and I seek to provide you and yours with one of them: your body, your love, the color of your flushed cheeks and the way you carried yourself, through my eyes and my craft. You become a part of me and I offer you the softest and most welcoming love one can muster. When I am shooting I see you from the eyes of those who want to remember you. I want to remember you, I always will.

Pictures preserve the history of us. The bonds we share between each other, forged by our determination to truly live. I honor the depth and complexity of real love with reverence. This is the birthplace of my creativity. I yearn to know love intimately and to live so fully that each moment pushes the boundaries of what I knew before. My feeble attempt at holding this in my hands is all I have to offer in this life. I want to give you the chance to hold it too. A fragment of your life, forever frozen, capturing the love that occupies each breath you take together and all the other seconds in between. There will never be another moment like this. 

My heart knows that I won’t walk beside my lover forever. He is the better half of me, my home, my heart. When I see him, I can already envision the wrinkles near his eyes and I can’t help but reach out to touch them, knowing there will come a time when our shadows grow long and our faces become soft. One day the wrinkles I see now will actualize, a reminder of the burden we carry through life, the cycle of love and mourning we are thrust into when we are born. I sneak pictures of him when he’s sitting on the couch, or knelt in the yard, or making dinner, or looking at me, because someday I will not remember that moment, but I’ll be offered the chance to relive it through albums I’ve collected. I devote my life and craft to my selfish need, to give myself the chance to reach back in time and touch the corner of his smile, and remember the way his smile looked when we were still young.

Some day our knees will creak and our bones will protest in waking hours, the aches of a life well-lived. The people I’ve loved and forgotten will place a photo of our youth at the bedside and in that moment I will find my way back to the first day I saw him, silhouetted against a streetlight, waiting for me and the life we created for ourselves every day after. Despite the worn edges and colors faded by time, each image will tell my grandchildren and great grandchildren stories of a day they’ll never see.

I take photos for the person in the frame, and the person in the future, and the person left to clean it up when I go. Pictures demand to be looked at, seen, absorbed into our subconscious. Hidden in lockets and hollowed-out books, tucked into back pockets and taped to the fridge, stuck in the dashboard and the corner of the mirror.

Through them we see generations shouting back to us,

I was here, I was alive, and it was perfect.