When I began to find my voice as a photographer during my undergraduate studies, I immediately gravitated towards portraiture, and particularly, documenting my Pop-Pop. He became my muse and the base of all of my photographic projects. When we had these special moments together, it was a way for us to tune out the world around us and people around us and focus on one another.

At the start of March of 2020 when the Covid-19 Pandemic began, I had no choice but to adjust my artistic practice. I turned to the landscape as a way of processing the many emotions I was dealing with. Through this ritualistic and spiritual practice I have developed, landscapes have become a means of both portraiture and self-portraiture. With each photograph I take, I inhale all of the frustrations and overwhelming emotions I am experiencing and as I align the viewfinder in my medium format camera, I exhale and release those emotions with a heavy sigh of relief. Each negative acts as a time capsule to a particular emotional place I was in.

However, this ritual took on a whole new meaning in January of 2021 when I lost my Pop-Pop. I didn’t know how to function in a world without him and began to connect to nature as a place where I was able to begin processing my grief, without fear or judgement. Each location in this body of work has also become a place where I was able to connect with him spiritually through listening to the music we used to jam out to in the car. While exploring nature in solitude, I have been able to truly let go and be vulnerable. 

I have sought comfort in the same places over the past three years and they have all evolved before my eyes, just like the never-ending grieving process. Every time I enter these special and safe places, I have begun to see more signs from my Pop-Pop, allowing us to connect like we once did in the physical world.