Curiosity about revealing the human body absorbed in unselfconscious moments has long driven my photography and research. My recent work, Devil’s Pool, explores the intersection between the body and nature and looks at how the landscape can allow us to exist freely in our physical selves, absorbed in the experience of place. Devil’s Pool, an unsanctioned swimming hole in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, magnetically draws people from all over, and this work explores the complex, layered story that unfolds here.

The film photography project, spanning seven years, investigates how people relate to their environment and affirms the human need and impulse to commune with the natural world. The work pictures diversity, celebrating the human body interacting with nature and recognizes traditions that follow both the landscape and bathing throughout art. The photographs highlight the value of access to green spaces within an urban setting, and a sense of discovery and revelry through connecting to nature.

Through photographing at Devil’s Pool, I began to see the landscape, both tamed and wild, as a fundamental force that fosters our potential to exist unselfconsciously and fully present within ourselves and our surroundings.