Just before the world changed in 2020, I found myself in La Jolla for my 40th birthday, craving inspiration after months without shooting. One of my days there I wandered to Scripps Beach in hopes of taking some sunset pictures at the beach. After walking along the shore for a while, a cluster of rocks caught my eye. I loved how they filled the foreground beneath the sunlit clouds overhead. I had found my scene—I just needed to wait for the light to be just right. And that’s how this photograph “Reign Over Me” came to be.

That moment became more than just a photograph—it was a fleeting sense of peace before the chaos to come. Looking back now, it reminds me of resilience and the beauty that endures, even in uncertain times.