G R E G E R S   H E E R I N G

WE CRAWLED FROM THE SEA
       

Early morning, September 2020—amid COVID and raging wildfires.

Downtown Los Angeles. A hospital room high above the deserted streets and freeways. I lay there with my newborn daughter resting on my chest. An eerie orange light shone through a dirty window.
The room was old and stuffy. I reached over to open the window. Seconds later, I could feel the heat sear my skin and the smell of tiny ash flakes, drifting inside, filling our space.
I’ll never forget that morning that felt like both the dawn and the end of the world.

No one could have foreseen it would be another nine months before we could visit my family in Denmark with our littel girl. When we finally got there, nothing seemed the same; it was as if we’d turned into primitive creatures, just learning to crawl onto land after a life at the bottom of the sea far down under the swirling waters above. 

Now, tumbling across the soft sand, we explored a world we had never imagined. As if we had been pulled into a new consciousness—one in which all life both begins and ends.


All photographs made on 35mm black and white film.