HIDDEN WATERS
Endangered and Disappearing Arid Land Springs
Springs are living archives of both human and natural history. For millennia, they sustained life, guided migration, and shaped cultural relationships to water. In the arid West, they remain rare lifelines that support far more biodiversity than their size suggests. Yet many are now drying up from over-extraction, climate change, and neglect, and our awareness of them has quietly diminished.
For the past nine years, I’ve photographed endangered desert springs, approaching them as ecological systems as well as places of fragility and memory. My connection began while living in a bone-dry Arizona town, where water scarcity shaped my sense of place and sharpened my attention to these hidden waters.
I photograph springs for their stories, light, and mood, using a muted palette to evoke the intense dryness surrounding them and the beauty shaped by both vulnerability and resilience. Through these images, I hope to keep their memory alive and to encourage their protection.