After spending a quarter-century photographing the vast, iconic landscapes of America’s national parks, I turned my attention to the landscapes of my own city, San Jose, California. This shift in my practice mirrors an evolution in environmental thought: from conserving distant wilderness to embracing an inclusive ecology that acknowledges the complex, intertwined relationship between human life and the natural world.

Within walking distance of my home, the Coyote Creek Trail—a paved recreational path bordered by a narrow strip of nature—weaves through the suburbs and between developments for twenty miles. Neither remote nor pristine, the trail is not a destination for awe. Yet, through sustained attention, its fragile beauty emerges, awakening a sense of wonder for the wildness in our own backyard. Over a decade of returning to this trail, I’ve become attuned to its changes over time—seasonal rhythms, wildlife patterns, and the cycles of drought and flood that shape Coyote Creek.

These changes also include the transient human presence along the trail. The creek’s watershed has been shaped by dams and engineering, and for many years, it was home to the largest homeless encampment in America. Though the Jungle has been cleared, makeshift shelters continue to appear and disappear with little notice. For some, the trail is a place to pass through; for others, it is a home in the most literal sense. The fleeting nature of these camps, and the lives that inhabit them, mirrors the ephemerality of the landscape itself.

This work is a meditation on a place where the boundaries between the wild and the human blur, capturing both natural beauty and the human stories embedded in the landscape. In the hope of inspiring an appreciation for even the smallest patches of wildness in our midst, I aim to evoke the wonder that can be found in the overlooked, moving beyond the distant and untouched to embrace the lived-in, the intervened-upon, and the local. In the Coyote Creek Trail, I have found a place that reflects universal themes of transformation—of nature, of people, and of how we understand our complex place within the land.