2020 was an unsettling time for everyone. A global pandemic shut the world down, and most of us didn’t realize at first that everything was changing beneath our feet—that the world we knew wouldn’t return. Before COVID, I was constantly moving. I was traveling, always outside, always photographing. At the time, I was focused on portrait and fashion work, and I believed I had a clear sense of where my life was headed.
Then COVID hit, and everything stopped. Like so many others, my world collapsed overnight. I couldn’t travel, couldn’t work with people, couldn’t photograph the way I had before. Being in Portland made it even harder the city shut down four separate times, and people were locked inside, unsure of what to do and afraid of what was coming next.
That period became one of deep reflection, though not by choice. I found myself constantly thinking about my life, my direction, and what any of it meant. The world felt unreal, like a strange, disconnected dream, and I became fixated on that feeling. I began walking every day sometimes for hours at a time watching the world slow down, listening to the silence, and observing people who felt just as lost as I did. It became increasingly clear that nothing was going back to the way it was.
I knew I couldn’t sit still and wait for the world to decide my future for me. I needed to do something. That’s when I decided to start a project. I didn’t worry about titles or concepts—I simply went out and photographed what I was experiencing. Every day, I walked with my camera, shooting constantly, searching for a way to visually express what this moment felt like. Eventually, I captured the first image that made sense.
I remember staring at it, completely absorbed. It felt like exactly what I wanted to say. I wanted the work to reflect the emotional reality of that time a quiet, confusing dream, like a fading memory, where faces blurred and days bled together. I kept going out and shooting, trying to build on that feeling, but nothing else seemed to fit.
Six months later, I finally understood what was missing. I needed to approach the world differently. I began intentionally putting myself into a meditative state, disconnecting from everything around me and focusing only on observation. I would walk while listening to movie soundtracks, letting my mind drift so I wasn’t actively participating in the world, just watching it. That shift changed everything.
Through that process, I was able to complete the series in two weeks. Even then, it felt unfinished not because the project wasn’t complete, but because I still had more to explore. I left Portland and continued searching for that same state of awareness. I became obsessed with it. In that mindset, the world felt quieter, clearer, and more meaningful. Every person, place, and experience good or bad became interesting. I absorbed everything.
That journey began with a road trip across America, driving from Portland to New York. It marked the start of a long and difficult process not just of discovering the world and my voice as an artist, but of discovering myself.