the Book

Currently seeking representation and publishing. 2026. Full proposal and manuscript are available upon request.

Wander is a philosophical, narrative nonfiction, nature memoir built around a solo journey I made into the High Sierra Mountains of California. I took a handmade blanket, a battered copy of Walden, two small bags of ash with a teaspoon each of my parents, a wooden pinhole camera, 50 rolls of expired film, and no electronics or tent. I wandered alone for several weeks and several hundred miles, on and off trail, from Kings Canyon to Yosemite National Parks. My aim was to explore disconnection, landscape, creativity, letting go, grief, solitude, and stillness in a place I’ve spent half my life exploring.

Wander is a long solo walk in the Sierra Mountains, a contemplative dialogue, and a challenge to the reader to consider their own place in this world and what it means to find an experience of being alive, to find wonder in the natural world without the need for electronics, and to turn away from busyness. Wander’s philosophical approach is not a linear travelogue documenting each step, but rather a reflective dialogue between myself and the reader. Wander’s call to slow down in a busy world is also a call to embrace uncertainty, simplicity, and what it means to let go.

As we react against our lives being increasingly digitized, Wander offers an invitation to turn off technology, slow down, and step away from noise, even if only for a brief time. While the overall narrative follows me through the mountains, each chapter is an essay that stands alone. As you wander the pages with me, we’ll talk about time and geology, about awareness and wilderness exploration, about trees and art and observation, about confronting the grief of parental death, and about a refresh of a beloved art practice in the place that long ago changed my life.

image portfolio

Photographed on a 6x12cm wooden pinhole camera, using mostly expired film, these images represent a creative and visual disconnection. Photography stripped down to its most essential, its most elemental. The uncertainty of what I would capture added to the overall experience of being apart from the world, but a part of the wilderness I was in.

The Camera

Designed and handmade by ONDU Pinhole the camera I’ve used for this project is a 6x12cm panoramic pinhole which has 3 pinholes to provide rise & fall without having to pitch the camera up or down, which would introduce horizon distortion. A pinhole camera is a model of simplicity in its function. A dark box, a tiny hole and some kind of light sensitive material is all that’s needed to make one. It has no lenses or viewfinder. It works because of the camera obscura effect, the tiny hole projects an inverted image against the inside of the cameras back. Because the hole needs to be extremely small in order for the effect to work the aperture on the camera I’m using is equal to f/160, which will require long exposures.

Even working in the field is changed by using this camera. No longer able to look through a viewfinder and frame the image within the cameras borders, I’m forced to envision the cropped boundaries. Every photographer knows what it feels like to lean your eye into a viewfinder separating yourself from the world and becoming its observer, becoming its creator. It’s an empowering creative feeling. With no viewfinder, the pinhole camera doesn’t allow me that separation and I’m forced to confront the creation of my work through contemplation not a predefined crop. Added to this is the extremely small aperture hole that requires long exposures and therefore time to sit and watch and think.

Photography Setup

• 6x12 CM pinhole film camera.

• 2 filters; red 25 and a 3-stop neutral density

• MeFoto Backpacker Tripod

• 50 rolls of BW & color negative 120 film, some of which was 17 years expired

• Reciprocity guide for each film

Backpacking GEAR

Base gear is all the gear minus photo, food and water. Please contact me if you have any questions regarding anything I’ve listed. I’ve spent countless miles tinkering with this system, including some new additions I’ve added specifically for this project.

Gear / Ounces / Notes

Backpack - 47oz REI climbing approach bag. 20+ years old.

Poncho - 11oz Can be used as a makeshift tarp. It’s small, compact.

Quilt - 24oz Think of it as a warm blanket. handmade.

Sleeping pad w/ top sheet - 20oz The pad is one I splurged on, it’s a Therma-Rest Neo Air, thick, cozy and light. I added a top sheet to sleep on, which wicks away moisture (the pad by itself gets sticky if you run hot at night) and adds amazing sleeping comfort.

Ground Sheet - 1.5oz

Air pillow - 2.7oz Too bouncy. I need to find an alternative.

Cook kit with Mug - 7.4oz My other pride and joy. I handmade a small tin cup from the bottom of an atomizer and punched holes along the rim. To cook, I light a little bit of denatured alcohol which will boil water in the tin grease pot I use as my kettle. It’s a fundamentally simple setup that will not break and allows me to accurately judge exactly how much fuel to bring, which I carry in an old plastic water bottle. The amount of fuel I use is 1oz per meal. Need 10 meals, it’s 10 oz. No more guessing at how much fuel is left in the opaque isobutane containers.

Swiss Army knife - .7 oz

First aid kit - 3 oz

Toiletries - 4 oz

Patch kit - 1oz

Nalgene water bottle - 3 oz

Smart plastic water bottle - 1oz

Down jacket - 10oz

Rain/wind jacket - 2.5oz I handmade this out of old nylon ripstop. I find it silly the number of wind/rain jackets and the cost with expensive breathable fabrics and numerous vent zippers. Most of your venting comes off your head and feet.

Rain pants - 9 oz

Running shorts - 2oz

Long underwear top/bottom - 6.2 oz

Shoes - 20oz Breathable trail shoes, best decision I ever made regarding my feet. No more blisters and uncomfortable wet feet after river crossings. They’re light, dry fast and most importantly conformable. If I could go barefoot I wood. Maybe I should look into slip on moccasins.

Hiking poles - 15oz

Maps, compass - 8 oz

Journal & pens - 5 oz