In my series "Regeneration: Salt Pond Restoration 2010 - 2022" I recontextualize urban and natural landscapes into abstract photographs allowing the viewer to examine the dramatic changes in biodiversity that are taking place in the San Francisco Bay.

Salt Ponds have existed in the San Francisco Bay since the 1800s and are characterized by environmentalists as having taken away the lungs of the Bay. Currently they are a part of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, the largest wetland restoration program in the United States. As a Silicon Valley native, I feel drawn to capture these dramatic changes taking place in the San Francisco Bay and use my photography to highlight environmental issues in the region.

I started going up in a helicopter to take aerial photographs of the Salt Ponds in 2010 and have continued for over a decade. After several years of taking these aerial photographs, I had thousands of images and I began creating formal grids based on the year they were photographed and a common color palette. As the dramatic changes in the Bay continue, I will add to this series and create more grids documenting the increasing biodiversity over the coming decades.

I recently expanded my project to include photography from the ground level, allowing the viewer to examine the changes in biodiversity, zooming in from a completely different perspective. During the pandemic, I began photographing Ravenswood salt ponds bordering the Facebook campus in Menlo Park, CA. Technology workers look out over these ponds from slick glass buildings and go out to exercise at the Ravenswood Trail in the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge. Many are not aware that this miraculous transformation is taking place in their own backyard.

Every time I walk out on the trails leading to these sites I see new life and dramatic changes: evidence of the exponential increase in microbial life as the wetlands are restored. It is really inspiring to see what nature is capable of. This gives me hope for the survival of our species (and others) on our planet. Nature reclaiming its territory is a potent theme for me and one that I explore further in other photographic series.