The Edge of Nowhere: Winslow, AZ

There are certain moments in your life where you realize, sometimes quietly, sometimes all at once, that you’re exactly where you’re meant to be. My then-boyfriend and I decided to take a road trip through Arizona with no destination, no itinerary, no expectations. Just our cameras, the open roads, and the hope that somewhere along the way, we’d find something worth photographing. We wanted adventure in the simplest sense: to explore, to follow our instincts, to see what the desert would give us. Eventually, that road led us to Winslow, Arizona. Our first thought was the crater out there, but before we got there, we found an abandoned neighborhood.

We stumbled onto the ruins by accident, a small cluster of structures, long abandoned, their bones exposed to the sun and desert wind. The walls were crumbling, painted over with layers of graffiti from strangers who had found the place before us. We wandered through slowly, touching the textures of the broken walls, letting the silence settle around us. There was something magnetic about the way the ruin stood against the desert, refusing to collapse completely. This was the moment that urban exploration clicked for me, not just as a curiosity, but as something I felt deeply connected to.

At some point, he climbed onto a rocky ledge overlooking the endless desert. I stayed behind, photographing him as he grew smaller and smaller on the horizon. His fearlessness always amazed me; he did not think, just did. I watched him as he became framed against the open sky, the ruin at behind us, and the desert stretching out for miles in front of us.

This trip was a mental break for both of us. We both yearn for the open road, the freedom of just moving. Finding this place was exactly what we needed. We both got to be creative, had a mini adventure, fell a little more in love, and felt like this is what we should be doing with our lives. We are both meant to be explorers with our cameras in our hands.

I’ve visited many abandoned spaces since then, but that little skeleton of a community in Winslow remains one of the most important. It was the catalyst. The spark. The place where I realized that urban exploring wasn’t just thrilling, it was grounding. It brought me back to myself. Even though that relationship eventually ended, this adventure is something I still hold with gratitude. It is imporant to remember the moments that define and change you as an artist.