I am a self-taught photographer living in Monroe, Louisiana. Some of my first photographs, taken as a teenager, were of the bayou that meanders through my hometown and the flow of that early work continues today.

After a twenty year career as a Pediatric Intensive Care nurse, and after returning to Louisiana from Connecticut, I put down the tools of my previous life, picked up a kayak paddle and a camera and started over. I rediscovered the wetlands of northeastern Louisiana and probed their depths with the reverence of a first time explorer.

For more than a decade I have been developing a long-term study of northeastern Louisiana – the overlooked region that lies between the Mississippi and Ouachita Rivers. I have wandered through the vast farmland, rural communities, and ancient earthworks collecting photographs – images that tell the story of this land and what it gives to those of us who live here season after season, generation after generation.  More recently, I’ve been photographing in New Orleans creating solo as well as collaborative work with my partner, Anna Rowan.

My goal is not just to document these areas but to really crawl inside them and see what makes them unique. In black & white I am able to get closer to the bones of what I am photographing and discover images I never imagined existed. Those discoveries, along with the sheer joy I experience through my camera, inspire me to continue.