Camera: Fuji X100s Location: 6th x Broadway, DTLA Year: 2013 Edition: 1/1

My photography is raw, grounded, and surrounded by concrete, so I immediately felt challenged by the thought of finding an image that evoked “Ascension” the way I’d first considered it - an expressive force reaching for flight. And in color.

I couldn’t.

After a few days with my work, I realized my ascension would have to be internal; a meditative, still, moment captured amid the churning city. I renewed my search twice before returning to the image I’d first considered but had promptly rejected.

In this image, people reach out to each other earnestly and kindly. Boys muse at an elder’s lesson. Men chant and laugh; one even cries. Mothers and daughters line the back, dressed in black, while daily commuters and vendors bookend the scene.

We are a light burning and fading before each other's eyes. Our ascension is measured by our ability to see ourselves in each other.

I am grateful you are here.