About

I started my photography journey twenty-five years ago with a hand me down Canon AE-1 and a couple old rolls of film.  Somehow I convinced my parents to let me turn a basement closet into a darkroom and spent my adolescent hours in a red-lit room, anxiously awaiting each image’s revelation.  In a lonely time, my photos became my best friends, my joy, my escape.

As I got older, the world stepped in and I found myself shying away from my art (I wasn’t brave enough to call it art back then). Fear, shame, imposter syndrome, it all stepped in.  I worried I wasn’t a good photographer, or even if I was, photography wasn’t really art, right? It’s just a moment in time, I just saw something that caught my eye.  I didn’t paint a masterpiece or sculpt a David. I just saw how the light hit a stairwell and caught it on camera at the right time.  

Then I decided to (try to) let fear go. I started talking to other artists and sharing my symptoms.  I found out I’m not the only one with fear.  Turns out (correct me if I’m wrong) we all live with that feeling in our guts that everyone else knows something we don’t and someday the world will realize we’re actually just a child pretending to be an adult.

I recently heard that a joy shared is a joy doubled, and a burden shared is a burden halved.  Speaking up halved my fear - he’s definitely still there (his name’s Carl, in case you were wondering) but he’s a little bit quieter now. I’m hoping sharing my rat quiets Carl down a little bit more. 

You see this is a manifestation.  A move in a direction to be more me.  To be a person that 12-year-old Sarah would be in awe of - a person she would be happy she stuck around to become. To be who I intended to be before the world told me I was too much.  

I am inspired by new places and new people - the lives that are happening all over the world while we are so concerned with ours. The little moments that make up a day, wherever that day occurs.  Each time I travel, I’m reminded of how we are all simultaneously the universe and a grain of sand.  Everything matters while nothing matters at all.  There is always joy if you look, even in the worst of times.  Especially in the best of times.

I hope you are inspired to be someone 12-year-old you would think was cool. I hope you decide to step past fear. It’s really amazing on the other side.