I’ve been a professional photographer for over 25 years. I went to college for it - got a BFA in Photography and almost got a Masters of Photography (maybe later!).
It is how I make a living but I don’t see it as a “job”. What a relief really! I don’t think I could survive a regular 9-5...I’ve had the coolest assignments along the way, met some of the most fun people, and traveled all over the world. Meeting and taking portraits of people from all over, in all walks and stages of life is one of my favorite things
It’s my favorite thing because I get to meet you! My past, present, and future muses...
It’s always been about the people; that is what I love the most about taking pictures and being a photographer.
I love that moment when my subject looks me straight into my camera’s lens and I love love love it when they play hard to get.
I love when my subject is self-aware of my gaze and where they seem to be really enjoying the process of getting their image taken - that gives me a real high - and at the same time, I like the challenge of a person who hates it and that slow process that has to occur until gradually, you win them over! A sense of a lightening up from inside their core occurs. It’s something you can see in the captures - a tipping point of some kind because all of the images recorded after that have a natural or calm quality - gentle evidence that the subject is finally grounded once again.
This process unfolds with enough time and care and it’s all in the evidence of the pictures taken.
Whether or not they end up enjoying the process is up to them as anything in life - My favorite subjects don’t have to love having their portraits taken. But my favorite subjects do end up sharing with me an honest moment in time and a part of their humanity.
I sometimes have these fleeting moments that I only get when I am listening to certain types of songs or when I am on a trip to a faraway land and I am just out and about -taking a walk. - it’s there that I’ve realized something has worked out for me or something is about to come true. It’s almost a sensation that I am walking into my destiny - it feels a lot like deja vu.
Photography stumbled into my life without any wanting - no need, and just a hole in which it filled it.
It came into my life and I was very selective about when I would take my camera out - what for - and for what I placed before me.
I have never been a documenter. I am also not a collector of sorts - I don’t collect moments out of some kind of habit or need to have them.
I’ve realized over the years that I have primarily used photography as a way to meet new friends.
To ask a person to sit for you meant that there was a reason for them to be near you. A reason to ask them questions. To get to know them. It was how I began to check in with people.
I took pictures of the people I wanted to spend time with. And eventually, of the people I admired - when I got up enough courage to ask them. This seems to be some kind of cycle for me. When I feel confident to ask. My courage comes and goes, wanes and waddles.
I had a square shift that happened to me in high school when I accidentally dropped my first 35mm camera in the ocean - I explained to my grandfather - the one who had given me that first camera and that started my photography career about how it was broken forever… not totally so - in actuality, it could have been just cleaned and repaired …
But I had just learned in school what a twin lens medium format was once I got my hands on it and I saw those big square negatives and the way I could shoot the images by looking down into the viewfinder rather than straight into that viewfinder like 99% percent of the traditional cameras utilized even today - even our phones.
I freaked out in joy and had to have one! I was lucky enough to find an old one for $12 dollars and I lived in that square universe for almost two decades. It changed everything for me and for a long time I really saw the world through my eyes as a square. I was already on the Instagram train, dare I say… before the invention of the iPhone.
The surprise of looking at what I got after I shot off a roll of film and it was all said and done was something that never got boring. What a treat to be in this moment and be able to catch it in some way. Maybe not the way it really was but after the photo is taken it can become just that - if only in some abstract way.
Sometimes when I am shooting I won’t even look into the viewfinder or at what I was capturing at all. Deciding I actually wanted to witness this moment in time with my own eyes. I catch myself doing this even now. I’m just trying my best to experience it - whatever it is or what it feels like and knowing that somehow I want this moment forever captured and stored away. This is me trying my best - I’m trying to see you - I’m trying my best to understand you...I can almost feel you. It’s an addictive feeling and I’m so elated when I feel I’ve captured a feeling and not just something someone might say is a “good” image or a “pretty” image... All of those archetypes hold a place in my heart too, but it’s very seldom that I actually capture that feeling. I know I take lots of pretty images… But for me to call a shoot successful it has to line up with something transferable and explainable to someone else, only without the use of words.
In 2007 I bought my first “professional digital camera” - I say “professional digital camera” because in the early stages of digital photography that actually mattered. Early digital cameras produced mostly trash - something I wanted nothing to do with. But this one was on the high end and this simple purchase/shift brought me back to the 35mm format. Something that felt refreshing at the time!
I shoot mostly with a digital camera currently and I love it. I love how fast and experimental I can be. I love knowing I got the shot I wanted right away and I love how it captures light. Especially with high contrast black and white on-camera flash imagery. I am not a sideline person who just sits back with a long lens and captures all that's going on around me. I like to talk to people and I like to direct them. I push people. I make shit happen. I want people to be their most authentic selves but still, look their best. I prefer my subjects to be aware that I am there and I have their permission and I am in love with capturing candid moments probably most of all.
I really love a big party and I love attending weddings so becoming a photographer who shoots weddings was a no-brainer. The fast pace, the highly emotional roller coaster, the feelings of gratitude and joy that permeates the guests of a great wedding. It’s my connection to spirit through these families who are for the most part strangers to me.
I get so excited because I get to be a witness to it. I wonder if they even know this higher vibration is even there? This wonderful feeling. The best way to describe a wedding is like you are holding a bunch of highly charged crystals in your hands - many different colors and varieties all at once. Everyone’s vibrations come together in unison for that moment when a couple says their vows and sometimes again when they are all dancing together at the reception. It’s glorious!
When I was in college I took out a student loan and bought a fancier version of my favorite square format camera and along with the rest of the money traveled to Europe one summer with my photographer friend, Jessica. Our plan was to document our journey and see Italy, Greece, and Turkey.
This trip still informs my everyday decisions and life to this day. The best money I ever borrowed. The time to be selfish can be so short-lived or it doesn’t - your passion relies on where you place your priorities and that in turn directs your inner compass.
It’s only during travel and when I have no true home base that I feel like I am living in my element - maybe it’s the way I am “supposed” to be living...although I’ve never pursued this lifestyle. (maybe later)
In art school I enrolled as a photography major - I was certain that was what I wanted to do. But one year in and I felt that perhaps there could be something more than taking pictures. I mean I knew photography would always be there.
I decided I would switch gears and randomly choose to pursue a degree in Industrial Design. I mean, I appreciated the design of “things” I thought I liked it enough to spend 3 more years thinking about the design of physical things. Making physical things so thoughtfully and in brand new ways that hadn’t been explored before!
Major mistake on my part - instead of thinking through what the program was actually going to be implementing I just jumped in. I thought for a long time that may be feeling shitty and uncomfortable every day was just a part of learning something new.
Not surprisingly, spending 8 hours a day drawing perspective and gradient drawings turned out to be not my cup of tea. In fact, I can clearly state with a clear conviction that I don’t enjoy drawing at it! This change in majors put out the lights in my creativity and talking about making more ergonomic bike pedals made me want to quit on life itself. ( I looked around high and low for some of my drawings but I am pretty sure I threw them all away!)
I decided to put my fear aside and jumped back full force into the photography department. It was what I loved but secretly I was afraid. What if life as a photographer wasn’t “practical”?
Luckily for me, I found a few great mentors that were doing inspiring things with their careers while teaching full time, thus showing me all that was possible. We had endless amounts of time to talk about our work, get technical, and a really big invitation to try things out. Art school still feels like time and money well spent. A sense of gratitude and joy fills me up at just the thought of it :)
The school you go to matters - unfortunately, you don’t know what it is that you will require to be the best you can be until you’ve had enough life experience to fill the void. I for sure got lucky.
I chose my 4-year college and moved 400 miles away from home because my boss at the movie theater I worked at in high school went there. He pursued a completely different degree from me and was at least 30 years my senior but when Gary told me about it, I just knew I wanted in. I wanted that experience he described. Life seriously just works in mysterious ways!
There are plenty of things I want to do in addition to taking fun and candid photos of future friends.
One day I plan to make a film as beautiful and poignant as “ Call Me By Your Name “, be in a band as cool as Beirut, write my own children's story, finish a screenplay entitled “What Happens In Between” about life in the ’90s and become a master gardener! I will also design and build a home and finally learn to speak french fluently and live part-time in Paris - of course!