It feels like Home.
Spring Garden, the oldest single-family neighborhood in Miami, is an official Historic District, and being here has made me a creature of habit: taking walks through the neighborhood, inviting friends over to take their pictures during golden hour. Spring Garden is the first place that’s finally felt like home for me, a space in which I feel safe enough to host and create and make pictures every day.
I like to watch other people fall in love with Spring Garden, its towering trees and old-Florida homes, and to see the contrast between Miami’s young creatives and its history in real time. I’ve learned how much I want everything to be documented, to be remembered, in this small, intimate space I call home.
Spring Garden, the oldest single-family neighborhood in Miami, is an official Historic District, and being here has made me a creature of habit: taking walks through the neighborhood, inviting friends over to take their pictures during golden hour. Spring Garden is the first place that’s finally felt like home for me, a space in which I feel safe enough to host and create and make pictures every day.
I like to watch other people fall in love with Spring Garden, its towering trees and old-Florida homes, and to see the contrast between Miami’s young creatives and its history in real time. I’ve learned how much I want everything to be documented, to be remembered, in this small, intimate space I call home.
La tierra tiene memoria
The land has memory; the land remembers.
I left Venezuela when I was six; it’s part of my identity, a part that’s hard for me to access–I remember and long for the land without completely understanding it. Visiting in 2022 was logistically challenging. When I arrived, it was emotional to reconnect with my extended family and find new life in the world I’d left behind: the bull-fighting ring I played in, the backyard where I rode my bike, the view from the backseat of my godmother’s car, the retirement home where my uncle lives.
Venezuela is both beautiful and heartbreaking. As soon as I arrived, as soon as I touched the soil, so much of it came flooding back to me.
The land has memory; the land remembers.
I left Venezuela when I was six; it’s part of my identity, a part that’s hard for me to access–I remember and long for the land without completely understanding it. Visiting in 2022 was logistically challenging. When I arrived, it was emotional to reconnect with my extended family and find new life in the world I’d left behind: the bull-fighting ring I played in, the backyard where I rode my bike, the view from the backseat of my godmother’s car, the retirement home where my uncle lives.
Venezuela is both beautiful and heartbreaking. As soon as I arrived, as soon as I touched the soil, so much of it came flooding back to me.
Dear Summer is a love letter not to summer but to Florida. I made these photographs along its southern coast, from the Keys to Fort Lauderdale, during all four seasons. South Florida’s seasonal changes are subtle and hardly palpable; for most of us, it feels like summer year-round. Except for a few chilly days in the middle of a winter cold snap, you could visit the beach daily if you wanted to.
I often find myself there almost unintentionally, drawn to the unique and distinctly Floridian energy of the beach. For at least the last seven years, I’ve photographed South Florida’s beaches—and strangers, the sea, my friends, and the energetic buzz of life that thrives near the shore.
Dear Summer is not just an ode; it’s a diary of home, a document of a place that’s always warm but forever changing.
I often find myself there almost unintentionally, drawn to the unique and distinctly Floridian energy of the beach. For at least the last seven years, I’ve photographed South Florida’s beaches—and strangers, the sea, my friends, and the energetic buzz of life that thrives near the shore.
Dear Summer is not just an ode; it’s a diary of home, a document of a place that’s always warm but forever changing.
