TAMPA, Fla. — Before I began making pictures at Honeymoon Island State Park, I had fallen in love with the place. Through my high school years and after I returned from the University of Florida, the Dunedin park was my escape. Today it remains my safe place. I love that at one moment I can be standing in a salt marsh and in 20 seconds I can hike into a forest.
Honeymoon Island is a place where you can meditate endlessly, losing track of time. The park’s gravity evaporates my self-awareness and leaves me in awe. Making pictures there has afforded me a deeper way to express and experience healing. Each of these pictures was taken with a macro lens, about one inch away from the subject.
The park is teeming with life and death but it fills me with hope. I’ve grown to know the flora and fauna well. When I close my eyes I can see their shapes and colors clearly. A place like this can break you of self and force you to witness the patterns of life. The microcosms are harsh and exacting, everything has its place and I am humbly reminded that mine is temporary.
While making pictures in the park, the mosquitoes drain me and my knuckles swell from the no-see-ums. Ants and hitch hikers tangle themselves in my socks, but I fight the distractions, pause, breathe and for a moment it feels like the bugs have forgotten about me.
I need this, so I can know what it is to be truly present.
