Taking Flight

17. I think often of when things might calm down. When I’ll be in a rhythm that feels less risky, with an outcome I can predict. And then I remember that I’m an Aries, and I love the challenge of flight – diving into the unknown and how that uncertainty pushes the limit of what you thought was possible. Each day I create something…

Nature Painted This

16. I was a painter in my late teens and early twenties. Not a great one, but a passionate one. I never had the patience or the right tools for fine line work, but the process was really all that I needed. I didn’t paint this. This is a moss covered wall in Desolation Sound, where it’s pretty remote. For instance, this is what…

Trusting Your Instincts

15. We are pack animals by nature, and the tribe equals survival. In my life I’ve always dared to desire. Learning and reaching and leaping have been a part of manifesting those dreams. But alongside that leaping has always been a “keep it safe, check this off of the list” approach first. I want to birth many businesses, travel endlessly, build a fascinating community…but…

The Peace Within

14. Have you ever sat down on a yoga mat (or meditation cushion, or tree stump, or forest floor) closed your eyes to the stillness, and realized immediately that you’ve been holding your breath since you don’t know when? Do this now:  sit up tall, lay your hands in a little pool in your lap, feel their connection, how touch is a form of…

Stones

13. Four years. Six drives across this country. Across lakes, rivers, oceans, tears, dreams, devastation, inspiration. Twenty stones, gathered by the same hand in the lapping water. Sand muddy between toes. The unknown. Unpacking my few remaining possessions into my new home. The one that is mine, that will be mine, for years to come. Twenty stones. I don’t remember where they came from,…

Sisters

12. The year I shot these beautiful girls was when I learned to “pose” kids. Not overly pose them, but put them into positions that were more engaged, more connected. As my business ages, so do my clients, and as kids grow, they can actually respond to what I ask them to do. So I have to ask them to do things that make…

Slowly Flying By

11. How can we we walk through the world surrounded by people and feel alone? Sam, another Seattle-ite, called into the radio station KEXP last night and said “I’m in need of music tonight because I’m so sick of being lonely”. It was the most pure truth spoken honestly. Singing voices could fill the void for him, momentarily. I see that in this image…

Amelia

10. This is Amelia. She has pica, and a lazy eye. The pica was of great concern to her family, her grandfather Don Juan, and grandmother Dona Daria. Her big brothers Eustacio and Jacinto loved her so much. She sweetly and quietly would hang onto moms apron as she milled the corn and made the days tortillas, her dad farmed the plot, her brothers…

After the Shoot

9. My dad always told me “never put your camera back into your bag until you are in your car driving away from the shoot”. I’m so glad I listen to my Dad’s advice, because otherwise I would have missed this. It doesn’t all come together with effort. Sometimes it just comes together.  

Fierceness

8. That word, fierce, feels like a strange adjective to describe a three year old. Yet that’s what I see in this image. There is a directness, a bravery about her looking straight through that huge black lens and directly into my eye. It is very rare that I work with kids, or adults for that matter, who can make this connection when being…