I photograph belonging. I look for it in the communities we return to over and over, the places we inherit from our families, and the strangers who soon mean everything to us. When we learn where people belong, we learn who they are.

I live in Portland, Oregon, where I work with young people at the University of Portland, helping them belong in their new home. As a priest, I get to walk with people as they wrestle with the deepest questions of their lives. I see it up close, and as a photographer, I witness it from afar. I share those images to help others realize their own belonging.

Some places have shaped me more than others. In the mountains of North Georgia, I first experienced God's love. I grew up in the valleys of northeast Ohio and on the plains of Indiana, where family and friends slowly formed me. The countryside around Le Mans, with its small churches and stained glass windows, is where my religious community, the Congregation of Holy Cross, began. These places root me and others I love, and in photographing them I learn more about human belonging. I photograph the places where the ache that beauty leaves behind stays with me, where something good and real is present just at the edge of what I can hold.