a note from the artist

There are moments when we move through the world convinced we are alone in it. Separate. Unseen.

And yet, we are always passing near others who feel the same way — close enough to share the sky, far enough to miss each other.

This image lives inside that tension.

I made Wandering Star at night, on the climb toward High Rock Lookout. I settled into a small nook in the cold and waited. The mountain was still. The forest held its shape. Mount Rainier caught the light of a rising half-moon, and I let the exposure run long enough for the land to glow without waking.

Hours later, just before dawn, Neowise rose into the sky and I froze the comet in this frame. That moment was brief.  Easy, compared to the waiting that came before.

The image is assembled from those two exposures — not to create something fantastical, but to hold the experience as it unfolded. The patience. The alignment. The sense of standing very small beneath something vast, knowing others have stood there too, even if not at the same time.

This isn’t a photograph about isolation as absence.

It’s about the quiet fact that we are rarely as alone as we think.

Ordering: The price above includes a recessed mount to hang frameless and shipping to the contiguous United States. If you’d like one of the frames featured above, shown on the framing page, or something different, please add that to the note in the checkout process. You can also contact me directly via the for below or message me with the icon on the lower left.

⥥