Rising Photographers / U

I was in Pasadena before the Eaton Fire started on January 7th 2025. My 99-year-old mother still lives in my childhood home, and I had gone up there to do her shopping and to clean up the debris in her yard from all the high winds that day.

Since 2015, I have been captivated by the American West, immersing myself in its landscapes for my projects. I am particularly drawn to Southern California and the arid expanses of Arizona and New Mexico. Over time, I have grown intimately familiar with these deserts, connecting with their communities and embracing the unique, often overlooked no-man’s lands. In January 2024, I began researching the border regions of California, exploring the otherworldly landscapes that characterise these areas. Border landscapes are interstitial and anarchic zones that defy easy categorization. These gray areas are marked by both absence and presence. Natural desolation and human impact intertwine, lending them a strange, almost haunting beauty. A thick silence resonates there, laden with the invisible, with waiting and with loss.

'The city of Guanajuato is home to a multitude of narrow alleys and colorful old houses.' With this basic information and my prior knowledge of beautiful San Miguel de Allende, I decided to take an intensive tour of these two cities. As soon as I stepped out onto the street for the first time in the early morning in Guanajuato, I was completely amazed by the different levels of its streets, the narrow alleys, and the lights and shadows cast by this unique architecture.

My work is semi-abstract, surreal, and avant-garde. I am captivated by interesting forms and juxtapose elements in order to create mystery and amplify the magic I see in the world around me. My images invite the viewer to stay longer, drawing them into a deeper kind of “seeing.” Photography, for me, is a practice in seeing and presence. We go through life taking things that are right under our noses for granted, seeing in a superficial or preconceived way, or miss beauty entirely, limited by our own inner blockages. When I’m out with my camera, I force myself to observe more deeply, and search for those breathtaking glimpses I might normally miss.

“Anonymous Citizens” are the humble, everyday people familiar to us all—those who happen to be walking along the streets of any town, just like the rest of us.

‘Salon Studies’ takes a close look at women between the ages of 45 and 65, and the choice they make to either alter their appearance by means of dyeing their hair, or alternatively allowing their hair to ‘go grey’. For many women this decision is fraught with strong emotions, first and foremost among them a fear of aging.

The design and construction of La Grande-Motte date back to the Trente Glorieuses, the thirty years of unprecedented economic growth following World War II. During this period, paid holidays gave rise to mass tourism. In order to keep vacationers from turning mainly to Spain and the French Riviera, the French government planned the creation of new seaside resorts.

It began with a name I didn’t recognize, scribbled in a book that once belonged to my grandfather. That small discovery unraveled the hidden history of my grandmother, a history I was never meant to know. Her absence profoundly shaped my father’s life and ultimately led to his suicide, setting events into motion that still reverberate today.

The Weight of Light is a body of work born from the intimate experience of aging and sadness for the world’s diminishing values — its ethical erosion, loss of compassion, and broadening division. These shifts in perception, including a progressive blurring of vision, resonate deeply. Navigating these realities has reshaped my world, often muting its vibrant hues. This drew my focus back to the foundational language of monochrome, my grainy darkroom work from the early 1980s, and the tonalities of historical processes like gum, platinum, and photogravure that have long inspired me.