It is easy to say I picked up a camera and from day one I just knew I wanted to be a photographer. No, that isn’t how it happened. I picked up a camera as a kid and I didn’t understand it. I then picked up a camera as a high school senior and still didn’t understand it. It wasn’t until college (majoring in biology nonetheless) that the shutterbug began to take hold. I would go on hikes with my camera in tow and try to elucidate something in nature that you would normally pass by. I began to find beauty in seemingly mundane, brush covered dirt trails. It always seemed ironic to me that people would gawk over these photographs, yet if they were in the same situation they would walk right over it. At this point I realized I saw the world in a different light.

The logical progression from this insight is that I would start shooting weddings and portraits, right? Not so fast. If there is one thing I have learned it is that there are no straight lines in life. My photography got put on the backburner again after college when I thought my destiny was to get a PhD and become a professor. Long story short, sitting in a sterile, isolated lab for 12hrs a day and feeling like your mind was melting was not for me. So, I picked up my camera again and asked myself “if I truly enjoy photography why is it always playing second fiddle to everything else in my life?”

All too often people sacrifice their dreams for security and comfort. I could have suffered through graduate school and made a nice living, but I wouldn’t be doing what I loved. Call me a fatalist, but I think that the camera and I were meant to be.

Without further ado, I would love to capture you in a different light and create a Collective Perception of beauty.