The Light.
Natural light is never still—its nature is to move, scatter, bend, and fade as time goes. It can be harsh yet soft, blinding yet gentle, all in the same breath. It’s presence a paradox. This series began with an image I once dismissed as a dud—a photograph I thought was a failure. But failure isn’t fixed; it waits for the right moment, like light shifting across a subject. With time, even the harshest light can shift, giving the subject a new breath : in it new meaning
It all started with the first photograph—a snowy day on my first trip with The North Face nearly two years ago. Forty-one days after my mom passed, I packed my bags insisting I was fine. I wasn’t. I didn’t even realize it. I buried the weight of emotion, hiding from the light that is grief—the same light that might expose what I was going through. Those weeks held sharp highs and quiet lows—tears behind goggles, doubt sharpened by storm winds, my first steps into the backcountry. I felt unprepared, afraid, certain I was letting the opportunity of a lifetime slip away.
Days of hiking were marked by shifting skies—sun breaking through staggered clouds, sudden bursts of light, all impossible to predict. Grief acted in the same way : Creeping in when least expected, cutting with surgical precision to hit me hard. I could be chest-deep in snow, ready to click the shutter, and just as light pierced the clouds, grief struck the same way—random, unrelenting, and blinding, leaving me stuck in place, unable to see what was ahead.
And yet, the body adapts. The mind adapts. Even in collapse, growth pushes through, but only when facing the harsh light of grief. As the trip went on, I saw it in my work: early frames weighted with fear, later ones softening as I grew patient with myself, less afraid of failure. The more I admitted my pain, the more my art reflected it. As I learned to trust that I could withstand grief, I also began to trust my judgement to create
At the time, I resented these images. They felt heavy. But now, I see them as proof: even inside failure, something alive was already there—just waiting for light, a break through the clouds. This time, not as grief but as hope
Natural light is never still—its nature is to move, scatter, bend, and fade as time goes. It can be harsh yet soft, blinding yet gentle, all in the same breath. It’s presence a paradox. This series began with an image I once dismissed as a dud—a photograph I thought was a failure. But failure isn’t fixed; it waits for the right moment, like light shifting across a subject. With time, even the harshest light can shift, giving the subject a new breath : in it new meaning
It all started with the first photograph—a snowy day on my first trip with The North Face nearly two years ago. Forty-one days after my mom passed, I packed my bags insisting I was fine. I wasn’t. I didn’t even realize it. I buried the weight of emotion, hiding from the light that is grief—the same light that might expose what I was going through. Those weeks held sharp highs and quiet lows—tears behind goggles, doubt sharpened by storm winds, my first steps into the backcountry. I felt unprepared, afraid, certain I was letting the opportunity of a lifetime slip away.
Days of hiking were marked by shifting skies—sun breaking through staggered clouds, sudden bursts of light, all impossible to predict. Grief acted in the same way : Creeping in when least expected, cutting with surgical precision to hit me hard. I could be chest-deep in snow, ready to click the shutter, and just as light pierced the clouds, grief struck the same way—random, unrelenting, and blinding, leaving me stuck in place, unable to see what was ahead.
And yet, the body adapts. The mind adapts. Even in collapse, growth pushes through, but only when facing the harsh light of grief. As the trip went on, I saw it in my work: early frames weighted with fear, later ones softening as I grew patient with myself, less afraid of failure. The more I admitted my pain, the more my art reflected it. As I learned to trust that I could withstand grief, I also began to trust my judgement to create
At the time, I resented these images. They felt heavy. But now, I see them as proof: even inside failure, something alive was already there—just waiting for light, a break through the clouds. This time, not as grief but as hope
