Daphne

I am a...
Professional/Serious Amateur

Photograph Description
Daphne is from my series Dividing the Estate. The project captures the essence of the D&R Land Trust in Princeton, NJ. This woodland preserve comprises rewilded former Gilded Age estates, now managed as a minimally maintained public landscape. This space has shifted from private ownership to collective stewardship, after tensions between private developers and the public good.

I grew up beside these woods, where they formed the backdrop to my childhood, a space to play. Returning in 2024 to care for my mother, I resumed walking their paths, and through the quiet repetition of these daily walks, began to photograph, allowing the landscape’s subtle, persistent presence to guide the work. As my mother’s life draws to a close, I know these woods, and the images made within them will become my remaining point of connection to a place where my family's roots span generations.

Landscape is something we are inside of, connected to, and mirrored by. With this in mind, I have experimented with color curves to tint black-and-white images. These subtle shifts in tone lend the images a sense of timelessness, evoking a place anyone can experience and revisit—a landscape bridging past and present.

I draw inspiration from artists like Sally Mann, whose landscapes capture place, history, and family. As my life shifts, the Princeton woodlands become a mirror—always present, always changing, reflecting layered grief: the loss of family and home, mixed with quiet mourning for the land and for the fragile ties that sustain both.



Photograph Place
Princeton, NJ

Photograph Date
2025