Not everyone will understand when you need to be alone.
Especially as a woman.
There’s a quiet pressure to stay connected, responsive… available.
To explain yourself.
To make sure everyone else is okay before you give yourself permission to step away.
But for photographers… for artists… solitude isn’t indulgent.
It’s necessary.
We’re a rather solitary and obsessive bunch, whether we admit it or not.
And sometimes… you just need to set it down.
I didn’t go to Under Canvas to relax.
I went because I needed space.
Not noise.
Not input.
Not even inspiration.
Just… space.
I found myself loving the blank canvas walls.
Which sounds strange until you realize how much we take in—constantly. Composition, color,
emotion… it never really turns off.
So just the sunlight streaming in through the tent window?
That felt like relief.
No pressure to create something until I was ready.
That moment—that “there it is” feeling—right after the first shutter press…
Standing under the core of our universe, knowing it’s about to come together—
I’ll always chase that.
Also…Yoga on the deck of my tent.
Just moving because your body needs it.
The small win of starting a fire in the wood burning stove.
(Which, let’s be honest, feels way more impressive than it probably is.)
Still… I’ll take it.
2am came easily that weekend.
Arches National Park
Dead Horse Point.
Canyonlands and at 4:30am—
well… I’m already up…
So I went to Mesa Arch for sunrise.
Because why not.
Somewhere in between… familiar strangers.
A quiet nod.
Shared space.
No expectations.
My kind of people.
Grocery store sushi.
Not glamorous.
Didn’t care.
Sleeping until noon.
No alarm.
No urgency.
And the bed—
it swaddled me in comfort.
The kind you don’t realize you’ve been missing until you finally stop.
There’s a version of you that only shows up in the quiet.
Not the one that explains.
Not the one that holds everything together.
Just… you.
And somewhere in all of that space…
I started to feel like myself again.
A few days after this trip, I photographed a birthday session.
And it struck me—again—how much I love what I do.
The merge of it all…
human faces, fleeting expressions… set against something timeless.
The mountains don’t rush.
They don’t perform.
They just… are.
And somehow, when people step into that space, something shifts.
They soften.
They stop trying so hard.
They become.
And I realized—
this is why I need the quiet.
Because when I give it to myself…
I can hold that space for someone else.
Seeing THEM.
And not everyone will understand the need for that kind of space.
Especially for women.
Because the pressure doesn’t just disappear when you step away…
you have to choose to set it down.
Over and over again.
But the people who do understand—
they’re the ones who find their way here.
Out into the quiet.
Into the mountains.
Under the stars.
Thank you to Under Canvas Moab for the stillness, the light, and the space to return to myself.
https://www.undercanvas.com/camps/moab/
