About

I was born and raised in the beautiful city of Chicago. I have always loved learning, and I have never stopped being curious. Early on, I liked taking street photos and travel photos, and always felt I had a "good eye," but only later on did I start to delve into the world of photography.  I took my first photography class in 2009, and for a while, I was all about using natural light. I learned everything about shaping light and taking advantage of natural light, and thought using artificial light was "cheating" in some way. I took my first advanced lighting class in 2014, and it changed my world. I realized that knowing how light behaves, and how to control it, whatever the light source, was just another tool in my arsenal in order to actualize my vision. For me, photography isn't only about recording what I see.  Sometimes it's about creating the world or vision I want to see. 

Besides my formal training, I am also self-taught. I continue to learn, and will often do self-portraits, where I am able to gain a better understanding of storytelling through facial expressions and gestures. Even before studying photography, I was a performer, so I have experience from the other side of the camera, and I understand storytelling from several perspectives.

My favorite kind of photography falls more on the abstract side; perhaps capturing images that ask more questions than they answer. Still, on the more commercial and practical side of things, my main objective is just the pure aesthetic. I want to make whatever I am capturing look good, and to evoke the intended mood. In commercial photos, I want every location to look enviable, and every brand to look its best, even if the subject for that "brand" is you! No matter what style of photography I am doing, I put my soul into every shoot. I always set my intention to create a positive, fun set, free flowing with creativity.  I take art and my work very seriously, but I don't take life in general too seriously. Alan Watts said it well: “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the Gods made for fun.”