"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." — Marcel Proust
Cascade, Monterey, CA, 2011
2nd. Place Winner in Abstract, Monochrome Awards, 2017
In a garden near my home, I discovered something extraordinary hiding in plain sight. What began as a simple walk became a meditation on the nature of time itself, as I watched leaves cascade through the air in their eternal dance between branch and earth.
But these weren't just falling leaves - they were moments in suspension, caught between their past life and their future dissolution. I began to photograph them, not as botanical specimens, but as participants in an ancient ritual of release and renewal. Through my lens, they became something more than seasonal debris - they transformed into a living cascade of stories, each leaf a chapter in an endless narrative of becoming and letting go.
The cascade began to speak.
Each leaf told me of its journey from crown to ground, of the wind that carried it, of the light that fed it, of the rain that shaped it. They spoke of seasons witnessed from their lofty perches, of the gardeners who tended the earth below, of the countless passersby who never noticed their individual stories within the greater symphony of falling.
In this image, you see not just leaves, but a cascade of time itself. Each overlapping form represents a moment in the endless flow of becoming and dissolving, a visual poetry of descent and transformation that mirrors our own passage through the world.
The gray scale isn't an absence of color; it's the presence of all colors at once, collapsed into the monochrome of natural transition. These leaves have transcended their earthly origins to become something more: messengers of the cascade, carriers of the eternal rhythm of rise and fall, witnesses to the beautiful impermanence that defines all living things.
When I look at this photograph now, I no longer see botanical specimens tumbling toward the earth. I see the visual equivalent of a waterfall frozen in time, a meditation on the graceful acceptance of change, and a reminder that there is profound beauty in the act of letting go.
The cascade continues beyond the frame because the best movements are infinite. They flow in the mind of the viewer, in the spaces between the leaves, in the silence that follows the gentle landing.
Artist Statement
My work exists in the threshold between documentation and dream, where the ordinary becomes extraordinary through the alchemy of attention. This piece emerged from my ongoing exploration of memory as landscape, not the literal geography of places, but the emotional terrain of moments that shape us.
Through layered botanical forms, I seek to capture what cannot be spoken: the weight of absence, the texture of longing, the visual language of the subconscious. Each leaf becomes a character in an unfolding narrative about impermanence and beauty, about the stories that objects hold long after their original context has faded.
I am drawn to the liminal spaces where past and present converge, where the viewer must complete the story I have begun. My photographs are not endpoints but invitations - doorways into personal reflection and collective memory.
This work challenges the traditional boundaries between fine art photography and conceptual storytelling, creating what I call "visual literature", images that function as both aesthetic objects and narrative vessels.