A FRIEND DIED, 2026

A friend died. I had been wanting to make still lifes for some time. Last summer, I set up a table draped with a canvas cloth and began selecting objects from around the studio. I arranged many variations—single objects, pairs, and small groupings—but nothing felt compelling. I wasn’t working from a specific concept; I simply wanted to enjoy the photographic process. Eventually, I placed a concrete cylinder—a simple, elementary form—at the center of the table. When I began photographing it, I struggled and grew frustrated by technical issues. It felt disproportionate. This wasn’t supposed to be difficult. It was just a still life.

There is a skylight in my studio, and in August the light fell beautifully across the room. Its color and the shapes it formed on the table’s surface became more compelling than any of the objects themselves.

My friend was a still life photographer from the 1980s through the 2000s. Her still lives were largely gray, punctuated by few white highlights and even fewer black shadows where detail fell away in the negative. I began to realize that my images resembled hers (she was closely aligned with Morandi). The comparison bothered me briefly, but I continued working, using the time to relearn a photographic process I had forgotten. Day slipped into evening. The light moved from left to right, and eventually out of the camera’s frame.

Friends die. The time spent together becomes confined to memories of individual days, spread across decades of shared adventures. No new memories would be formed. What remains is fixed to a period when we shared a love of making photographs. I had always thought of time as too simple a concept, a territory already overworked—especially in photography, a time-based medium. I was wrong. Time matters.