Photography is important to me. Photographs leave our legacy of how we see the world. This legacy is our mark. I want to make and leave marks for myself and I want to make and leave marks for my clients. Remembering is important. Making a mark is important. YOUR mark is important.

This is what I think about with every click of the shutter - making and leaving marks. It's remarkable that a photo I made may still be up on the wall 10, 15, or 20 years later as child goes off to college. Parents will reflect on these years of life while looking at one photo. Photos are important. Photos are powerful. Photos make marks.

Over a weekend last November we experienced our first snowstorm of the year. But when I was out shooting it, what was I trying to capture? Sure, the storm, but even more, the memory. NOT the memory of the scene before me, but instead the memory of the blizzards growing up visiting my grandparent's farm. You know those winters - snowdrifts were 10 feet high and we'd snowmobile for hours!!!! Okay, so the snowdrifts were 3 feet high and we snowmobiled for only 30 minutes until our feet got cold - but that's unimportant. What's important is making that mark of how I want to remember it, not as it actually was. Our parents really didn't walk uphill both ways to school - but I like to "picture" they did.

I have many powerful marks growing up: my mom and I watching sunsets together during family vacations; playing hot-box until sundown; the smell of Bounce emanating from dryer vents as I cruised through the neighborhood on my bike; high school football games; every autumn I’ve been alive; fishing with my dad and brothers; the smell of backyard barbeques.... these are the things I'm thinking about when I'm out shooting. They all have left indelible marks on my mind.

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