Laniakea
Portfolio & Blog
Who am I?
Laniakea is my digital home: part portfolio, part journal, part record of the road so far. It is a place where I share what I create, what I see, and what I learn as I move through the world.
My name is Oliver. If you are here, then perhaps you know me already—or perhaps life has simply brought you to this corner of the internet.
“Cease the Day, Gather Ye Rosebuds While Ye May.”
This idea lies near the heart of how I live.
Life is too brief to be spent asleep at the wheel. I want to be present for it. I want to see the world, meet people, follow curiosity, and make something meaningful of the time I’ve been given. I live, I write, and chase the kinds of experiences that leave a mark on the soul.
More than anything, I love being alive. Whatever God places before me, I try to meet it with gratitude.
I want to live fully, create honestly, and leave behind something real.
My Journal:
Adieu les Alpes
A few days ago marked the end of our long chapter in the French Alps for Johana and I. Honestly, I’m quite relieved to be moving on. As I wrote in Meditations, this experience proved to be quite different than I may have expected going in. There was all the opportunity in the world for…
Washington D.C. — World Culture Festival, 2023
By the time I arrived in Washington D.C. for the World Culture Festival of 2023, I was no longer entirely myself. This chapter belongs as an extension of my New York Chapter, because it came from the same unraveling. There was a stretch of several weeks during which my mental…
The New York Chapter
The New York Chapter Without a doubt, this was the hardest and most soul-crushing period of my life. It was heartbreak, poverty, insanity, and desperation that played a key role in forging who I am today. Despite how grim it all was, I’m glad I went through it. As Nietzsche…
The Lost Chapters
I recently felt inspired to sit down and write about some of my stories that I haven’t shared before. When I started the blog, I covered a lot of ground writing about both summertime and wintertime. But I want to focus on the latter for this one, because without a…
My Story
I was born in the United States, in a small town nestled in the Appalachian Mountains. By all appearances, I had a normal American upbringing: soccer, video games, cartoons, movies, school, university. Eventually, I stepped into a career in IT and worked in that world for several years.
It was stable. It was respectable. But deep down, I knew it was not enough for me.
I wanted more from life—not in comfort, but in depth. I wanted motion. I wanted uncertainty. I wanted to see what was waiting beyond the edges of the familiar.
So I began letting go. I sold things. Donated what I did not need. Learned to live lightly. Learned to travel simply. I started moving through the world with less baggage, both literally and otherwise.
That decision changed everything.
Since then, I have tried to live differently: with more openness, more faith, and more attention. I have left behind the life that once seemed expected of me, and in its place I have chosen the road itself. I move, I learn, I adapt. I try to follow the current rather than fight it.
I do not pretend to have all the answers. But I know this much: I want a life rich in experience, wisdom, and meaning. And when all is said and done, I hope to look back with peace, knowing I was truly here for it.
My Photography
Photography has long been one of the clearest ways I make sense of life.
What you’ll find here are fragments of the journey: places I’ve been, moments that stayed with me, and scenes that seemed to hold something worth preserving. Some belong to beautiful seasons of life. Others come from more difficult chapters. All of them matter to me.
Each image carries a story.
I especially love shooting 35mm film—Kodak Tri-X 400 on my Canon AE-1, along with my SX-70 Polaroid—and, of course, whatever I can capture with my iPhone when the moment arrives.
