Moments and context with natural scenes, wildlife, and the conditions surrounding them.
My love for Zion National Park is rooted in the idea of distraction through details. A place known for its grandeur and monolithic sandstone walls can inspire easily, but more so it can comfort those in need of quiet company and a place to get lost in. It took time and patience to carve out both my care for the park, and my need to find the details among the grand landscape. Mental health has guided my work since day one of exploring Zion, and continues to be a strong foundation of who I am as a photographer today. As tough as it is to admit, I have a lot to thank the horrible mental health of my past for. My struggles with mental health taught me how to be a photographer, how to find the smaller subjects and control the details, and even gave my images a voice through context. I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am without taking those first steps into the park when my mind needed it most.
Quaintness is a defining feature of the subjects within Zion’s borders. I think the ‘attractively unusual’ nature of the park bolsters the concept that Zion is essentially a photographer’s playground. It’s a place to learn photography intimately without the complications of having to show up for sunrise or go on some grueling hike for a vista. The best time to photograph the place is in the middle hours of a crystal clear day. Nothing more than the simplicity of reflected light, vibrant wildlife, natural oils, and the many textures that can be found beneath my feet in the form of ice and mud guiding photography. Therein lies the contrast of Zion I needed to make my mind feel calm. As my depression set in I wasn’t looking for a place to be inspired, I was grasping for a place to re-focus my mind.
Before my time in Zion I was striving for the classic, almost romanticized, idea of what a landscape photographer generally photographs. Grand sweeping landscapes, Milky Way and nightscapes, even diving into a bit of urban architectural landscapes to try to figure out what I cared about in photography. As my mental health started to go downhill, everything became too much to handle and I needed to focus in on the small things that I could control. I was taking my life day by day, and in turn taking each day in small scenes. Through the small scenes of the park I could hone in on what other photographers might walk right over. That thought became intoxicating; finding originality and individuality through the details of a place that is famous for its icons which have essentially been photographed to death.
Context for my images was never something I planned. I wasn’t much of a writer, and even to this day I don’t consider myself a writer despite having published a book and being adamant that every photograph deserves a story behind it. In my initial explorations of Zion I had taken an image of a buck as I was moseying with a group of deer along the Virgin River. To be in their company that day filled me with warmth and calmness that my mind was both craving and so desperately required. I remember thinking as I was about to post that image to Instagram that the viewer wouldn’t necessarily understand through just a photo of a buck what I was feeling in that moment. So with that image and each subsequent image posted, I would write some words to give a bit of context and put the audience in my shoes. Any writings would have to comply with the character limit that Instagram put on its captions, but all in all I was grateful for the limitation as a stopping point. I made it a point that each story behind the photograph didn’t have to be groundbreaking, but simply me grounding myself with where I was, what I was doing, and appreciating the fact that I was alive for another day and another small scene of that day.
With a wintry chill in the air and reflected light gracing the sandstone and shadows, I found a great blue heron resting among the banks of the Virgin River. I wouldn’t know it yet, but this heron and this specific bend in the river would soon become a significant subject for me and my photography. A huge element of my rocky mental health was the struggle to find independence and the lack of an identity for myself. In many ways the great blue heron embodies exactly that concept of caring for oneself through its lonesome and self-serving nature. I would stumble into this specific heron many times as I would explore new areas or when I felt I needed a bit of company, and with its presence it would show me that I was in the right place at the right time.
Winter was and still is what I consider to be the defining season of Zion. I might be biased when I say that due to my obsessive nature when it comes to the subject of ice, and the ice of Zion truly is unique unto itself. The obsession started with a trip to Kolob Canyons within the bounds of Zion which was about a 15 minute drive from my hometown. Along a winding creek I found a scene of nothing but water, ice, and reflected light. I fell in love with the movement and color of the scene so much so that I became addicted to recreating the photo. For the next 3 months I would return every other day to the same spot only to find that it was never quite the same again. This quickly became a lesson in rarity for me and made the idea of originality and individuality through delicate scenes of ice and scenes of abstraction paramount to my work moving forward.
While the sandstone walls and warm reflected light of Kolob Canyons and the main canyon feel like a cozy hug, it’s actually the east side of the park that is more special to me. The main and side washes are a treat to meander through, and the remote sections of the higher elevation sandstone really give a sense of silence and solitude. The main wash is a conduit for change, and often the ice that can be found among the boulders and pooling areas of water will show how fast that change can happen. Concentric lines at the surface of a refreeze tells a story of patience and time, and often the fused leaves in ice can show how lucky I was to stumble upon these scenes in the first place. I felt myself changing with each image of ice I took. It’s the focus I put on these delicate small scenes that finally pushed me in the direction that I wanted to go with my photography. The origins of my time in Zion were purely driven by me simply learning photography, but with the discovery of these smaller scenes I was closing in on the photographer I wanted to be and the subjects I wanted to capture.
I noticed very subtly that any notion of mental health in my writings began to take a backseat to discussing composition, subject, and photography as a whole. I began to heal with each photo and story shared. Nowadays I barely mention mental health in my writings, yet it will forever be at the core of who I am. At my lowest point I needed to have a distraction from my mind, and photography was that distraction. In re-focusing my mind through photography I found my identity in the smaller scenes and their stories. I realized photography no longer needed to be a distraction from my mind, but rather something to embrace and define who I am.
I now live in Rochester, New York for the time being with my partner Tessa and our cat Scout. While I do take two trips a year back home to Zion, we do hope to be back out west with our families soon.
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Thank you for your support, and I do hope you enjoy.