You spent a full year at Café Botanico. What did that longer timeline reveal that a shorter project couldn't have?

“People share a bit more with you when they know you're not just passing through. I think in the best documentary settings, you have to be there long enough that people forget you're watching.”

When did you know this was going to be a book, and what did making something physical give you that a screen-based project couldn't?

“Part of it was the material I was working with. Permaculture is so tactile. It's about soil, life, and the feel of a place. A screen-based project would have captured the images but not the texture—the sense that this is something you can hold, return to, fold back open at a page.”

What advice would you give to someone who wants to document a place or community they love but hasn't started yet?

“Start before you're ready. The project you imagine before you begin is never the project you end up making, and the sooner you start accumulating material, the sooner you'll discover what it actually wants to be.”