Paradise Falling

Using landscape and constructed imagery as a way to reinterpret my memories and emotions, this series seeks to explore growth, reminiscence and the meaning of solitude through the act of photographing

Did I actually reach out my arms

toward it, toward paradise falling, like

the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---

the dark heart of the story that is all

the reason for its telling?

-- Mary Oliver from “The Chance to Love Everything”

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By observing and making imagery of the natural world around me, I have become a collector--I am gathering together images whose subjects are often scattered or widespread. Like Jazz, these images exist through improvisation, syncopation, and rhythm. Their meaning is developed through their own fluidity and abstraction. But also, this imagery is rooted in memory and my desire for the past to go away. Through organization and curation, I am able to redefine meaning and time.

The images, published as a monograph, are paired with vignettes of writing that explore the loss of a relationship, the loss of what home means, and the feeling of being unmoored. I spent the last ten years of my life drifting, and this series is an exploration of feeling lost within that physical and emotional landscape. The figures in the book are representative of metaphors that look at astrology, myth, and symbolism where as the vignettes offer a diaristic and more literal interpretation of the imagery.