Join me at The Gatehouse on Saturday, April 4th from 1–3 PM for a lumen printing workshop!
We’ll use sunlight, photo paper, and natural materials—leaves, flowers, anything you’re drawn to—to create soft, one-of-a-kind botanical images. No darkroom or chemicals, just a simple, beautiful process that lets nature do the work.
You’ll leave with a scanned digital print of your piece, and you’re welcome to bring your own plants to experiment with (or use what I’ll have on hand).
$35 includes one print | additional prints $10
Spectral Lineage: Parlor of Shadows
I’m excited to share that I will be in a two person show in July at The Seattle Light Room. If you are in the area I hope to see you at the reception!
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 3rd, 6-8 PM
Spectral Lineage brings together the photographic works of Ann Pallesen and Jenny Riffle in a joint exploration of memory, domestic interiors, and the unseen. Drawing on historical photographic processes and immersive installation strategies, the exhibition situates the domestic parlor as a site of lineage, ritual, and lingering presence. Pallesen’s work Era consists of ethereal lith prints and silhouette portraits that evoke intimate family histories, matriarchal legacies, and the subtle poetry of the past, while Riffle’s spectral imagery and experimental techniques in What is a ghost? probe questions of belief, the supernatural, and the traces left by time. Together, their work examines how images and objects record presence and absence, creating spaces where memory, history, and the ephemeral converge.
Emily, 2025
Here is the continuation of portraits I take of my sibling Emily once a year. We met up near the Puget Sound this summer in Seattle. 20 years of taking a portrait a year. It started on Emily’s birthday 2005, now I try to see them as close as I can to their birthday but we live on opposite sides of the country. This year I only had an afternoon with Emily in late July, and their partner Sarah, who I usually include in the photo, was on tour with their band. I wonder what next year will bring?
Fall Quarter at PCNW: Narrative in Photography
I’m teaching a class online this fall with Photographic Center Northwest- it’s about narrative and storytelling in photography- to sign up or check out their full catalog go to their website: www.pcnw.org
The Narrative in Photography Sept.27 - Dec. 6, 2025 (*No class on Nov. 29 - Thanksgiving Break) Day/Time: Saturday 10am-1pm (Pacific Time)
Course Description: Discover how images tell a story of their own and venture out to capture a story with a visual message at its core. Photography has always wrestled with the idea of truth; explore the limits of fiction and reality as you work on weekly assignments. This class will focus on the power of storytelling in photography throughout its history with lectures about the work of Julia Margaret Cameron to LaToya Ruby Frazier and Alec Soth. You will be creating your own photo stories; doing research on a chosen topic and organizing your creative process to present a final project. A good story is based on a strong idea and can be developed in many different ways. It does not have to be linear with a beginning, middle and end but it should have a strong central idea. In this class we will be exploring different forms of narrative in photography, some will be carried out in a series or photo essay and other narratives will be contained in one single image.
Lucinda Eden of Balcom Court
What a joy to photograph Lucinda Eden of Balcom Court for Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse. She makes jams and preserves in small batches from locally sourced berries and fruit. Here she was making a special batch of Haskap jam. The Hasksp or honeyberry is the first berry to ripen in spring. The jam is deliciously tart.
Zorthian Ranch in Altadena
I photographed these beautiful trees last October at Zorthian Ranch in Altadena, and then came January and the Eaton Fire. It was devastating to watch from afar the destruction that swept Altadena. Like everyone else I worried about my friends and their animals and houses. And I thought about Zorthian Ranch because I had just been there a few months before photographing a wedding, I had just pet the goats and cows, I saw all the beautiful trees and the amazing collection of art from found objects. And it’s heartbreaking to hear that almost all the structures burned and most of the art was lost along with so much in Altadena.
Now that spring has finally arrived in New York and the hills are turning green, I think of rebirth and how suddenly the stark naked trees are full of life again. I wonder what spring is bringing to the hills of Altadena. Please consider donating to help Zorthian Ranch rebuild: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Support-zorthian-ranch
Upstate Art Swap
I participated in a fun exchange project and sent in one of my Spectra Polaroids to the Upstate Art Swap- There will be an exhibition at Emerson Coffee in Utica:
Upstate Art Swap Exhibition x Emerson Ave Coffee, March 14–29
OPENING PARTY
Friday, March 14, 5–7 p.m.
Emerson Ave Coffee, 2011 Genesee St., Utica, N.Y.
This image is from a series I started when I found a few expired boxes of spectra film back in 2020 and started photographing trees. I loved the way the chemicals had dried up and the image was distorted but the lines became part of the landscape. An altered landscape - the colors all wrong- a view of a seemingly different dimension- magical.
I recently went to hear the great Robin Wall Kimmerer speak and she talked about feeling wonder and how that leads to feeling gratitude and how that leads to wanting to give back (instead of always taking) and that resonates with me in my photography- feeling wonder for the trees and the forest and wanting to be among them. Hoping to share that wonder in the images and desire to give back to the trees, to the land, to protect them.
Sherburne Inn
I'm so excited for this new chapter of The Sherburne Inn, a historic landmark in Sherburne NY. I got to photograph Gina Gardner and Chef Daniel Giordano right before they opened last week. Starting out they are open Fridays and Sundays in the dining room and bar serving locally sourced, farm to table cuisine, but they are working on the rooms and even a speakeasy bar in the basement. Check them out and follow along @thesherburneinn on instagram.
Wakeman Coffee for Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse NY
In this shoot I did for Artist and Makers of The Gatehouse NY, Jesse Wakeman gave me an inside look at the coffee roasting process at Wakeman Coffee in Sidney, NY. The coffee shop is housed in an old fire station. It was amazing to see the roaster in action, especially knowing this is the very coffee served at The Gatehouse Coffee Shop!
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse
I had the pleasure of photographing Anne Elizabeth Moore of Tinkertown Provisions. I fell in love with her hot sauces the first time I tried them, my favorite is Haze - made with rhubarb!
Discover the bold, unique flavors of the Western Catskills with Tinkertown Provisions hot sauces. Crafted in small batches from simple, local ingredients, these sauces celebrate community and inclusivity while avoiding common allergens like gluten, soy, dairy, and processed sugars. Available at The Gatehouse – do yourself a favor and spice up your day!
Group Exhibition at Justine Kurland Studio
𝓖𝓪𝓻𝓭𝓮𝓷 Dec 14th 6-8pm. I'm excited to have work in a group show this month at Justine Kurland Studio in Brooklyn with an amazing group of artists! I'll be at the opening, so come say hello if you can!
@indigonyx
@iseeyouiloveyou
@jennycalivas
@jennyriffle
@graylen.gatewood
@katherinefinkelstein
@leveewolf
@sara.abspr
@lmkdabe
@macloud9
@carlyries
@sammargevicius
Thanks to -
@justine4good
@chatwithphilo
Carrie Mae Smith
It was a lot of fun to see the studio of local artist Carrie Mae Smith and take some portraits of her and her work for her upcoming show “Blue Roses” at Lowell Ryan Projects in LA.
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse
My next subject for Artists and Makers is Alysia Mazzella. It was pure joy to visit her studio and see the beeswax candle making process. Be sure to check out her website and instagram.
Alysia is an artisan candle maker based in New York and he sources fresh beeswax from beekeepers upstate. The heart of Alysia’s studio is a pot of 100% beeswax. This is where the magic happens. Where the sunstruck wax fills the air and time moves slowly.
Beeswax is an antimicrobial material that burns at a slower rate because of its inherent density. It provides a bright and soothing yellow light like the sun. Beeswax candles purify the air by absorbing or neutralizing airborne allergens.
Beeswax candles by Alysia Mazzella underlines candlelight as both sacred and ordinary.
Photo Murals for ArtsWA
I’m honored to have several photos chosen through the Washington State Arts Commission for a new building at UW’s Medical Center. Thank you Dawna Holloway @studioegallery and Mike Sweney @artswa for all your support!
Photos courtesy of Everything Time Studio and ArtsWA
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse
I had the pleasure of taking photos of herbalist Lauren Raba of Catskill Botanicals for Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse. Seeing how she transforms her wild harvested plants through oil-based infusions into face and body creams was so cool. My current favorite is her Carrot Seed Eye Cream but I have loved everything I have tried, especially the Birch Daytime Cream made with birch bark and chaga from that first photo 🖤
Primordial Zine
I just released a zine of forest images called Primordial with @al.palmer of @brownowlpress!
The forest has been a place of beauty and wonder and also a place of fear and danger represented in old folklore and fairytales to modern stories and films. I have always loved being in nature surrounded by trees. I often see beings - human like with arms reaching out to me.
I am drawn to a modern retelling of an ancient folktale about the dangers of the forest called The Erl-King by Angela Carter… I love the way she describes the forest.
“The two notes of the song of a bird rose on the still air, as if my girlish and delicious loneliness had been made into a sound. There was a little tangled mist in the thickets, mimicking the tufts of old man’s beard that flossed the lower branches of the trees and bushes; heavy bunches of red berries as ripe and delicious as goblin or enchanted fruit hung on the hawthorns but the old grass withers, retreats. One by one, the ferns have curled up their hundred eyes and curled back into the earth. The trees threaded a cat’s cradle of half-stripped branches over me so that I felt I was in a house of nets and though the cold wind that always heralds your presence, had I but known then, blew gently around me, I thought that nobody was in the wood but me.”
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse
Here is another installment of a series I have been photographing for The Gatehouse - Artists and Makers: Alyssa Hardy of Flying Saucer Tea Station. Alyssa makes the best tea blends and she is a very cool human who likes X-files as much as I do... And she has a sci-fi/magical realism book club - check her out @flyingsaucertea on Instagram or her website.
PCNW's Chase the Light
It’s always a pleasure to take part in Chase the Light to support PCNW! Sign up on their website to participate: https://pcnw.org/chasethelight/
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse
This is Elizabeth Nields, an amazing ceramic artist and potter. She is one of my favorite people I have met in NY since I moved here and started working on a series of arts and makers for @thegatehouseny
I took a workshop with her in January and got to work in her studio housed in several barns on her land that includes a trail full of large sculptures outside. An impressive creative space. She is an inspiration ✨
Artists and Makers of The Gatehouse NY
I started a new job this year as photographer and content creator for The Gatehouse NY and I created a new series for them featuring all the artists and makers whose products are sold in the shop. Here is the first person I photographed Tracie Martinetti! It was such a joy to see her making her wonderful creations. Check out The Gatehouse's Instagram to see more as I post them in the next few months @thegatehouseny
