The places I photograph are more than beautiful backdrops. They are living landscapes with histories that stretch far beyond my own.

Based in Northwest Philadelphia, on the ancestral homeland of the Lenape, I have the privilege of photographing places that aren't frozen in time. They are living pieces of our community, constantly growing and changing alongside the people who call them home. Long before Philadelphia existed, the Lenape were the original stewards of Lenapehoking, the homeland that encompasses much of present-day eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and parts of New York.

Long before European settlers arrived, the Lenape cultivated deep relationships with the forests, creeks, and watersheds of this region through generations of ecological knowledge, stewardship, and reciprocity. The Wissahickon, whose name comes from the Lenape word Wisameckhan, meaning "catfish stream," is one of the places that continues to inspire my work. Like so many places we cherish in Philadelphia, it carries stories of change and resilience that didn't begin, or end, with colonization.

The Lenape were dispossessed from their homeland through colonization, violence, broken treaties, and forced removal. Yet they remain a living people, and their history continues through Lenape communities today.

As I've learned more about the history of this place, I've found myself thinking differently about photography. My work isn't about using the landscape as a backdrop, but about paying attention to how the places where we gather shape our stories just as much as we shape them.

Maybe our family photos in the Wissahickon aren't about finding the prettiest backdrop for coordinated outfits and perfect smiles. Maybe they're about remembering that we're part of this place, too.

Children don't need to be told how to participate in a landscape. They splash in the creek, collect acorns, climb over fallen logs, notice mushrooms, and stop to watch ants cross the trail. They instinctively engage with the world around them. Somewhere along the way, many of us learn to stand still instead. We pose, perform, and "take in" the world around us as though we're separate from it, forgetting that our lives are shaped by the same forests, streams, seasons, and soil.

The photographs I love most aren't the ones where nature sits quietly behind us. They're the ones where people are in conversation with it. Shoes get muddy. Hands reach for wildflowers. Someone looks up at the canopy instead of the camera. A toddler crouches to inspect a snail. The landscape isn't decoration. It's another character in the story.

In the midst of a changing climate, I believe remembering our relationship with the land matters. The Lenape remind us that people have long understood themselves not as owners of the natural world, but as participants within it.



While I have much to learn, I hope to approach this place with humility, gratitude, curiosity, and care.