Return to Green Sands

Return to Green Sands Beach is an ongoing photographic exploration of my long-standing relationship with Papakōlea Beach (Green Sands) on the southern coast of Hawaiʻi Island. I first visited Green Sands in 2007, and after that visit I began having dreams about the wind and the waves. I felt an unexpected connection to this landscape, one that stayed with me long after I left.

I returned in 2012 and began photographing the landscape more intentionally. In 2026, I returned again to continue this exploration, carrying with me more than a decade of photographs, memories, questions, and a desire to understand what it is about this place that continues to draw me back.

This new body of work is an exploration of that connection. Not simply a documentation of the landscape, but an attempt to photograph an emotional and physical experience of being there. The photographs include the landscape, the wind, the water, and my own presence within the place.

The work made during this 2026 return is new and still in progress. I am continuing to photograph, edit, and consider how these images relate to the earlier work and to one another. The photographs presented here are an early glimpse into an evolving project rather than a finished body of work.

Return to Green Sands will continue to develop through further editing, printing, writing, and future photographic work.