The Headlands in Marin County, California, is a place rich in history, with unfathomable amounts of people who have walked over its land for many, many years.  Whenever I am at the Headlands, I can’t help but sense the immense presence of those who were once there.   I feel by being there, I am also becoming a part of that history and maybe someone will be aware of my own existence there sometime in the future.

         Each of these images includes a garment, which can be seen more as a representation of a person’s past, rather than just a piece of cloth.  The garment appears to be floating, hovering, haunting and/or levitating depending on the environment it is in.  The garment relates to the environment by inventing a narrative the viewer can interpret as they wish.

         While creating the work, I chose which garment I was going to use by whether or not I can attach a specific memory with it.  The act of remembering an event or place triggered by a specific object (or smell, taste, song, etc.) is something that greatly interests me.  I am interested in how memory works and differs between individuals as well as how the act of remembering is never quite accurate.  The brain fills in gaps where nothing is stored and sometimes makes up information so that our memories might actually be false truths.  The act of remembering is unique in that it brings the past into the present through the subconscious.  This notion of memory is reiterated throughout the series and is something that I am personally connecting to because of the relationship I had with my father.

         This series is shot using black and white film.  I chose to shoot film and print digitally to further emphasize the marriage of past and present.  The camera I used also has many memories attached to it since it was a gift from my father, who bought it in Japan when he was a young adult.  In 2016, my father passed away from early-onset Alzheimer disease at age 61.  These images will always remind me of him because of the camera that was in my hands while I was creating these photographs.  Whenever I hold my Dad’s Nikon FE2 in my hands, I feel his hands there too.