Keep Looking Up is a coffee table photography book I started ten years ago, a year after I picked the camera back up, as my only child was fighting cancer for the third time. I had been living on my own for a year, taking pictures to clear my mind, and began arranging them in Apple’s iPhoto book builder. I spent hours on the layouts, using the same instincts I’d built as a data architect … but the words I wrote never did justice to the photographs.

In December 2025, my job of twenty years ended unexpectedly. I spent a month walking around San Francisco taking pictures, and it brought my life back into focus. I wrote 20,000 words about three experiences that still caused me great pain, read them aloud to people who had been there, and drew a journey map … on which my unfinished book was the brightest star.

I found the words, finished the book, and learned to keep looking up.