So to Start...

Everything is ridiculous.  We have created the words we use, time, money, calenders to make sense of the world that is complete chaos so we can function easily within it.  We need the society, the people we surround ourselves with, to confirm these constructed systems and keep them up and running.  Through this understanding, I find the world extremely fascinating and the way I choose to understand it is by photographing.  Looking through a lens in the way that we look through our own eyes brings me pure joy.  Holding a moment forever that never again will be, puts me at awe with the camera.  And so that is what I have become.  A person who photographs to make sense of an odd and beautiful world.  An appreciator of colors, forms, people, and places.  What an amazing opportunity to encounter, where learning and creating in a world that enchants you is your career.

I cannot be more thankful to have found my passion in this life.  Even if it wasn’t photography that was my passion, I believe I could have found it through use of the camera (which I highly suggest if you are at a loss).  You see things differently through the lens.  You are forced to look, you follow what catches your attention and then you can assess your findings.  You find you, through images.  Perhaps this is just me being poetic about my fixation, perhaps you should try it and find out.  Either way it will be an adventure.  Everyone is a photographer these days, owning a camera of some sort, even if it is your phone, so you won’t look too weird out there.

While I do see extraordinary beauty within our world, I cannot let go of the countless flaws I seem to notice, the ridiculousness if you will, that has been created by these societies we have fashioned.  Now I would love to say “I am here to change the world!” and help all the little girls and boys without clean drinking water or food.  Shed light on the slaughter, rapists, ignorance, maliciousness, racism.  Perhaps I could be fulfilled if I could make everyone a vegetarian, create a cure for climate change, uncover the fabricating politicians and unjust system we are all a part of and make everyone more kind to one another while revealing that we are all one and love is the answer.  Yeah… that would be ideal and I will never give up hope that it will all happen some day. But I am one person and do not share the same views as the the seven billion people in this world, let alone just one of those seven billion.  So all I can do is give my take on the world in the best way that I know how.  Through images that encapsulate my thinking.  That is all we can do.  Create in the best ways we know how, to hopefully generate conversation, to unveil whatever one thinks needs to be seen by the world.  Thats where it starts.  Have conviction in your work and give it all you have.  No one else can see things the way you do, making your work extraordinarily important.

“It takes courage to interrogate yourself.  It takes courage to look in the mirror and see past your reflection to who you really are when you take off the mask.  When you’re not performing the same old routines and social roles.  It takes courage to ask – how did I become so well-adjusted to injustice?” – Cornel West