Once it bursts into the air, nothing dies

“Once it bursts into the air, nothing dies” traces my return to feeling — through nature, ritual, and image. In the Peruvian forest, I reconnected with presence, memory, and self. These images hold what remains when we truly listen.

Nature has always helped me connect to memory — to feel time in a slower, more honest way. But somewhere along the way, I lost that thread. I forgot how to listen. I forgot how to feel.

A few years ago, I started traveling, and one of the places I kept returning to was the highland tropical lands of Peru, where some of my family lives. At first, I was just documenting — daily life, small details, the landscapes that surrounded them. But slowly, something shifted. I wasn’t just looking through the camera anymore. I was remembering. I was returning to a part of myself I thought I had lost.

The more time I spent there, the more I started to feel present again. I began noticing the space between things. I gave myself permission to slow down, to feel, to breathe with the land. Photography became a way back into that connection — not only with the place, but with myself.

Along the way, I also started exploring rituals and plants as ways to open something inside me. These experiences didn’t give me answers, but they helped me listen — to the silence, to the ground beneath me, to emotions I had pushed away.

Once It Bursts Into the Air, Nothing Dies is a collection of those moments. It’s not a straight story — more like a quiet unfolding. A way of holding memory, grief, beauty, and presence all at once. The images live in that in-between space, where something is both ending and beginning. Where nothing is ever really lost — just transformed.

This book is a return. A reminder. A way of feeling again.