Sierra Nevada, California
This land is charged. I got a taste of this when I first visited the Eastern Sierra in March 2018 at the age of 19. Witnessing the pink dawn light herald Mount Whitney, Lone Pine Peak, Mount Williamson, and other snowy granite fortresses of the Sierra Crest towering above the desert floor was awesome in the fullest sense of the word. I was blown open. Something in me stirred that morning, and I felt pulled to make this type of experience a regular part of my life. It was a beautiful sunrise, yes, but this was something adjacent to beauty. More like a yearning for something on the horizon of perceptibility, seemingly right there but hard to put my finger on, that I got an initial glimpse of that morning.
I followed through on making this type of experience a regular part of my life. From 2018 to 2021, I came out here from Los Angeles or the Bay Area every chance I could, often driving 15 hours round trip in a weekend for a single sunrise in the backcountry before sprinting back across California in time for school or work. I began honing systems to safely roam consequential alpine terrain far from any people or trails in the middle of the night with enough wherewithal to stay receptive to the landscape and point my camera at interesting compositions. As my skills improved, the whole mountain range opened up into a big playground, an arena in which to expand as an artist and person. In 2022, I took early retirement to live in my car and apply this skillset to powerful landscapes around the world including the Arctic, Himalaya, and Andes. In between these trips, I’d seemingly always make my way back to the Eastern Sierra. As of writing this in 2026, I've spent several cumulative years living in the wilderness here.
As I’ve become intimately familiar with the Eastern Sierra, I’ve repeatedly encountered what seems to be an invisible but quite distinct boundary between places that feel merely pretty and a region that feels particularly charged— a swath of land to which I have an inexplicable affinity. This region includes the Sierra Crest from Split Mountain to Olancha Peak, the Owens Valley between these two peaks, the Inyo Mountains south of roughly Mazourka Canyon, the Panamint Valley, and Telescope Peak; along with several other remote desert ranges, valleys, and mesas east of the Inyos extending out into the Great Basin. This region boasts some of the greatest vertical relief on the continent, an arid expanse of undulating mountain ranges and sprawling basins.
Nearly without exception, whenever I cross into this region, I feel a settling, like returning home in a very deep way. A settled ancient power resides here, a low-frequency pulsating hum, exhibiting slightly different facets of itself depending on the season and exact location, permeating those who are sensitive and surrendered. This liminal space where desert collides with alpine is desolate, especially in the winter, yet inviting if approached with humble reverence. Face-numbing wind and desert scrub keep the company of an unbroken granite escarpment erupting from the valley floor. Perhaps the austerity of the high desert thins the veneer of ordinary reality such that the aura of the mountains shows through that much more perceptibly. Rest for long enough in this potent emptiness and it massages and unfolds you. After days or weeks, whatever is knotted or superfluous begins falling away into the boundlessness. Nowhere else to be, nothing to do. Just a quiet wholeness remains. An understated hum of vitality. A gentle, buoyant, knowing smile. If I am ever feeling stuck or directionless, I know to just go to certain spots out here and wait with cupped hands until what I’m looking for and more inevitably bubbles up again.
Whatever is embedded in this land, it somehow feels essential that I organize my life around communing with and understanding it ever more deeply during my lifetime— a calling I’m happy to accept. Though the photography is secondary, tuning into the subtleties of the land and its weather through my camera is one way of doing so. I’m immensely grateful for all that this place continues to provide me and hope to do it a sliver of justice through the work I create. I imagine this collection of images will continue to grow over the next decades.
