I walk within the trees
I feel their limbs
their sensuous shape
the movement of the bark
soft breezes touching the leaves above
I find my strength
my soul
my safety
amongst these majestic beings

I am a person who is attuned to the natural world while living in a large metropolitan city. Each walk, I honor the nature found fighting its way through the pavement. Nature reminds me of the cycles of living, our tenacity to survive, and provides beauty inspite of life’s challenges.

In this series, Among the Trees, I use all kinds of botanical material to create a photo- sensitive emulsion that I coat papers with. The emulsions are made by grinding leaves, flowers or anything living that will produce a color. Once prepared, I choose photographs of trees I’ve taken and lay their transparency image on top of the paper. From there it can take days or weeks before an image is ready. The prints produced using this process are called anthotypes.

Once the anthotypes are complete, I marry them with images of myself in various stages of life. The different photographic processes, botanical matter, and my life’s cycle come together to tell this story.