My mother and her family emigrated to the United States from the Philippines in 1978. With them a wealth of culture was brought and new traditions have been established. Among these is the annual reconvening of our family of 20 at my grandparent's home in Bluffton, South Carolina. While visiting, I find myself drawn to the wetlands and the life that inhabits them. Among these are species of colonial wading birds such as ibis, egret, and heron. While viewing these birds year after year during the stay with my family, I found myself meditating on commonalities between the nature of these birds and that of my family. Both have come here from a considerable distance in order to make a new home for themselves and in turn created complex hierarchical social structures. Through the process of image-making, I discovered that these parallels began to crystallize visually in terms of composition as well as content, and are expressed in specific pairings of images. The printing process employed to create these images also serves as another parallel. Each image is printed in gum bichromate, which in part utilizes gum arabic (a natural gum excreted by certain species of tree) sunlight, and water, referencing the components of the ecosystem in which my family and the birds reside.