HI!

Welcome to my website. Here you will find stories, both photographic and written, of the spaces I have found to be healing. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, living no more than a few hours drive and sometimes a ferry ride to Washington State’s National Parks. Each summer as a child I would count down the days and hours until my family packed up the trailer to drive to one of these marvelous places for weeks in the woods. These camping trips taught me about self-reliance, the natural world, and the cycles of life. I also learned that nature could cure so many ills. The opening line to my biography will be, “The only time my family got along was when we were camping.”

My family had a dark secret – I believe my father went through life with undiagnosed depression - something he passed on to at least one of his daughters (except mine is diagnosed). In the city, and later the farm, Dad was an unpredictable force of rage and affection. In the forest, he became a doting husband who loved to explore the mountain paths with his wife and daughters. The weeks we spent in nature gave me a glimpse of what life in my family could be like – laughter, fun, love, and healing. My father is the person who gave me my first camera, a compact Instamatic with film cartridges and square flash bulbs, just before a camping trip. During that trip, he pointed out how light filtered through the trees and reflected off the water. I began to associate photography with nature and nature with photography.

On these trips, my mother who was the energy of love and adoration in our family, taught me the workings of nature. How insects would make a home of a fallen log and how the sun’s warmth created steam in a meadow after a rain shower. She taught me how to look for birds in the bushes, grasses, trees, and soaring overhead. She knew every flower by name and cheerfully greeted them as she hiked. She strolled slowly along a rocky beach to identify the rocks as they rolled in the surf, bending to pick one up to show us it’s beauty before giving it back to the ocean. Sometimes she’d pocket an agate or other intriguing stone. I began to observe nature as she had, turning my camera lens to the glistening beauty in dewy moss and the patterns in a flower-filled meadow.

Today, I have different cameras and better lenses than that little instamatic, but the desire to find beauty where I am still thrives in my heart. While nature and landscape photography are my first loves, I also find joy in street and urban photography, abstract photography, and dance photography. It is nature that calms the demons in my head, although, any time I bring my camera to my eye, breath out slowly, and immerse myself in the scene before me, I find a calm that hushes the hurtful voices in my head. It is that calm I bring to my photography – a journey to mental well-being. My hope is that in my photography, you too can find the peace, the calm, and your own well-being.