Accidentally invisible. All around us are buildings and plants that are overlooked, invisible to the rushed eye. We drive down the same streets and walk along the same paths, barely noticing what is around us. The facade of a mid-century modern apartment building, half hidden behind well-established trees, the pre-cast concrete panels created just for that building and then the mold intentionally destroyed. The sun-stripped siding of a small auto shop that has been there so long that no one even notices it as they drive by. The crumbling stucco of a house standing resolute in the middle of a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. The tiny fairy duster flower, clinging to the water droplets from the sprinkler, or a rare desert rainstorm. The classic saguaro, unique to the Sonoran Desert but so common to us that we look right past it.

I began taking photographs of these things–overlooked, undervalued, sometimes even abandoned. I have a drive to document them before they are destroyed, either by being demolished or repurposed into something unrecognizable. Over time, I noticed a shift in myself. I was looking intentionally as I drove each day, making mental notes of buildings I wanted to come back to photograph, paying attention to the red bird of paradise bushes that blossomed and the yellow puffballs on the sweet acacia trees over the sidewalk as I walked into the library. As things are rapidly changing here in metro Phoenix, I am documenting as much as I can. Pausing time to capture what everything looks like today. Mid change. Freezing a fleeting moment. Measured. Deliberate. Unrushed. I am working to uncover the history and layers of the stories as I document the city and share my work. In doing so, I am making it visible to others, helping them to also slow down and observe–to truly see–and appreciate the richly textured and layered communities we live in.