The Happiest Times I Ever Ignored (2024)

In the fall of 2024, I began shooting this project as a documentary essay. The more time I spent at the property, and with the photos, I began to see myself in the barn and house. Not my current self, but a later, future version of me. Like the property, I too would one day reach the end of my time. I too, will eventually be old, fragile, and quiet. The property began to serve as a reminder to me that an end – death – is the only thing promised in our life. No matter how “safe” I play my life or whether or not I make the “right” decisions in it, I too will still die. So while this project began as an investigation or a research photo essay in some ways, I think it became a meditation on my existence and life. 

Whether you or I like it or not, one day we will breathe our last breath. It's scary thinking of our mortality, but the more I have sat with it, I have become comfortable with it – on one condition. When my time comes, I want to know I got the most out of it. I want to know I was present for all of it. That I appreciated the people I love the most, and even the people I just sort of liked. I want to be here for it all, for better or worse.