Staying

Sometimes the work doesn’t come from where you want to be, but from where you are.

Sometimes the work doesn’t come from where you want to be, but from where you are.

There’s a difference between choosing a place
and finding yourself in one.

I didn’t fully choose Orlando.

Not for the reasons that usually drive the work.

—

For a while, that was hard to accept.

I was still holding on to a different rhythm.
A different kind of energy.
A way of moving that didn’t exist here in the same way.

Part of me thought
that to make the work I wanted,
I needed to be somewhere else.

—

But life doesn’t always align with that.

Sometimes you stay
for reasons that have nothing to do with photography.

Personal.
Family.
Timing.

Things that don’t show up in the work,
but shape everything around it.

—

And still, the work continues.

Just differently.

—

Projects started to take form here
in ways I wasn’t expecting.

Hidden West — documenting rodeo life in Florida.
The Junker Portraits — finding identity in what’s been left behind.
Tire Shop Guys — moments of presence in everyday spaces.

None of this would have happened
if I had stayed where I was.

—

I’m still learning to understand that.

That the work doesn’t always come
from where you want to be.

Sometimes it comes
from where you are.

—

It doesn’t mean I don’t miss the other pace.

I do.

It still drives me.

—

But staying has its own kind of clarity.

Not immediate.
Not loud.

But steady.
—
I’m still figuring out what that means.

But for now,
this is where the work is.

—

Juan