The notion of time dances around the intangible. It is ever present, never-ending yet we cannot experience it with any of the five senses; at least, not all at once. However we are slaves to the ticking clock, to the waxing and waning of the moon, to the sway of the seasons. The great equalizer, it discriminates against no one. We all have exactly the same amount of hours, minutes and seconds in a day. The sun rises in the East and sets in the West. But how we interact with this invisible dimension remains quite different for everyone.

So what is time? Is it a unit of measurement to account for the sequential passing of events? Is it finite? Is it indefinite? Does it account for the past? Present? Future? Or does it support all of these moments simultaneously? Or is it something we invented to create order and control over an otherwise chaotic string of happenings?

Eckart Tolle proposes the truth of time lies in the now, the present. You never really truly experience time. It doesn’t occur all at once, but in slow steady progressions. And as an intangible, you can only truly experience what happens during a specific moment. As in what is happening right now.

But the present is constantly confused with the content of the past and future. It’s nearly impossible for us to “live in the now.” As creatures of incessant worry, regret, anticipation, and goal planning we constantly fluctuate from the past to the future and back again without a thought to what is actually happening right now. How many times have you come across a photograph that suddenly takes you back 20 years to a point in the past to reflect upon? Or gone on vacation to visit a foreign place only to start planning the next event before you’ve even finished the current one? Pondered about an old flame while exiting out of the latest one?

I explore these ideas by trying to fully grasp this abstract notion of time using conceptual photography. How do we let this quantifiably unquantifiable unit of measurement dictate our days, our months, and our lives? Is it possible to live in the now? Are we so rooted in the past to see the day in front of us or even anticipate the future? Do we plan out so far in advance that we can’t see what’s clear as day right in front of us at this very moment?

Each image takes the viewer on a visual journey through space and time, searching for evidence of the intangible. Into the past and forward into the future while grounding you deeply rooted into those precious moments of the present.