Being: On the Path to Nowhere (now-here), is a work in progress about the conflict we experience while trying to exist at peace in the present moment. This journey unfolds across various landscapes and is marked with uncertainty, as well as serenity. We are confounded while seeking meaning and anxiously assessing what may lie ahead. When we finally arrive back home after reflecting on all of our experiences, then we can at last resolve to just “be”.

Being, is about the journey one embarks on when cultivating a spiritual awareness of self. Beginning in a domestic space looking outwards, this sequence of images slowly expands into a strange and serene Southern Californian landscape. The subjects are rendered with an ethereal black and white tonality, imbuing even the mostmundane tableau with a sense of mythos.

Being is largely inspired by the teachings of Ram Dass, whose book Be Here Now (1971) helped popularize Eastern practices of mindfulness and meditation. This series seeks to interpret the spiritual journey espoused in this philosophy into a photographic narrative. The most salient of these beliefs is explained by Rameswar Dass, a student of Ram Dass, in a concise essay included as the forward to Ram Dass’s Polishing the Mirror (2014). He asserts that “The key quality of the human soul is the ability to reflect on its own existence” and goes on to explain that as we cultivate this sense of awareness “we see our inner being reflected and projected onto every experience of the outer world. With patient spiritual practice, we can bring our external experience into ever closer alignment with our inner being.” Rameswar Das concludes that participating in this spiritual journey is simple and that ultimately “we are just allowing ourselves to be”.