I think a lot of what makes a life feel like your own happens in the moments when you actually stop and notice it. The thought that keeps coming back, the idea you cannot quite let go of, the person you feel most like yourself around, the feeling you have been trying to talk yourself out of, the thing you want to make even though you are not totally sure what it is yet.
 

I have always been interested in those things, probably because I think we are constantly being given reasons not to pay attention to them. There is always something else to do, something to achieve, some version of ourselves we are supposed to be working toward, and I think it can be surprisingly easy to miss what is already happening right in front of us. That is where Wide Awake came from.
 

I started Honest Moments as a photography business, and photography is still a huge part of what I do, but the more I worked with people and spent time thinking about why I loved it, the more I realized that photography was one expression of something much bigger for me.

I like noticing things, being curious about people, making things, following weird ideas, moving my body, writing down thoughts that might otherwise disappear, and paying attention to the parts of life that are easy to overlook.
 

Wide Awake is a place for all of that.
 

I do not think paying attention means having everything figured out, and I definitely do not think it means becoming some perfectly authentic version of yourself. Sometimes paying attention just means admitting that you really want to make something. Or noticing that you are uncomfortable and getting curious about why. Or realizing that you have been thinking about the same person, place, question, or possibility for months and maybe it is time to actually do something about it.

I want to make room for those things, in my own life and in the work I make with other people.

Right now, that looks like photography, writing, movement, and whatever else I find myself making. I have no particular interest in deciding exactly what Wide Awake has to be forever, I would rather keep paying attention and let it grow from there.

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