It’s an interesting thing looking back at life’s history to see the hints of where the road would lead. Whenever I pause to take a glance back, I can see that photography has always been there. It was and still is continually threaded into every single aspect of my life. Growing up in Southern California, my mother spent a lot of time taking pictures of our family as well as capturing camping and national park visits behind the lens of Canon. My dad took photography class in high school, learned to develop film, and took surf and car photos. My sister took a photography class in college that led to some prints on the walls of our home. This was just a hint at what was to come for me. One of the first creative outlets that I stepped into was landscape photography. During my time in the Army, stationed in interior Alaska, my eyes were opened wide in wonderment, as I began to see the beauty, majesty, and mystery that its landscapes held. That was just the beginning of my journey behind the lens.

One of the ways that I learned best in school growing up was to sit, allowing time to “slow down” if you will, allowing a subject to be freeze-framed before me, to learn the most I could about it. This allowed more depths of meaning to come to the surface, more time to dwell on its fullness and composition, as well as the various textures. This has not changed for me over the years; this kind of learning has benefitted me greatly, especially in the way of photography. In a “doom scroll” society that we currently live in, I believe that photos are more essential than ever, maybe even just as a hint to the human soul, to slow, down.

This essentially has been my life journey as a photographer: a journey of still shots in motion. Some of these moments need more attention to detail, where we can slow down together and abide deeper in the moment, allowing our eyes to fully capture the emotion, the beauty, and the life of these gifts from our Creator. That has been my heart as a photographer through the years.