I grew up in Taiwan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia and have traveled on every continent except Antarctica. Some of my earliest memories are of both my mom and dad with cameras. My mom had an eye for candid street portraits, and my dad was more of an architectural and landscape photographer. Between them,


I grew up a global nomad before the term was a thing. We often moved cities and countries. I was exposed to many different sights, sounds, smells, experiences, and beautiful cultures and people, and it's easy to see why trying to capture those moments became important. I can see the importance now, but at the time, the reality is I was a kid with a camera, and I had more pictures of my feet, bugs that may or may not have been in focus, or blurs of color than of anything of actual interest. I can not imagine the amount of film I ruined. My parents never said much, neither positive nor negative. They gave me the tools and the resources to figure it out, and I did. That, figure it out mindset has served me well over the years. Thanks, mom and dad.

Thank the gods that I lost interest in bugs and color swirls, figured out how to focus, and learned some skills because, as a good friend often reminds me, "you have to know the rules to break them," and that is still true to this day. I started taking pictures of what many teenage boys become singularly focused on, Girls. Yes, many girlfriends became models during this time.

There was a long period when I did not do any photography. I guess it was school, a few years floating around the Pacific on an aircraft carrier, career, family, life, and everything that goes along with those things.

In October of 2019, I lost both of my parents. My mom to a long battle with ovarian cancer, and my dad very unexpectedly from liver cancer. Going through their estate, I rediscovered all the pictures, the slides, the photo albums, and all the memories. So in early 2020, I picked up my old Canon 40D, which I had purchased in 2004, and decided that I was going to become a landscape photographer. I read everything I could, followed YouTube videos, and studied. I Learned a lot and started taking pictures, and then the world pretty much ended, thanks COVID.

I spent a lot of 2020 social distancing in the Colorado backcountry. During this time, I realized that while I liked photographing landscapes, I liked photographing people much better. Again, there is lots of learning, lots of reading, some classes, lots of pictures, and models later. I'm still learning, figuring it out, and continually looking at other photographers for guidance and inspiration.

What I enjoy most about portrait photography is working with others to create something unique that captures a moment, a mood, or a feeling. Something that we are both proud of. It is that moment when the client sees the image and says, "Hell yeah, that's it." These moments bring me great joy and inspire me to learn more and try new techniques to improve. To bring the best I have to every shoot.

Portrait Photography is truly a collaboration, and it's very gratifying for me to create with others to make something beautiful.

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