ABOUT

First off, thank you for visiting this site. I appreciate you.

Photography is something that I have come to and wandered from for as long as I can remember, but only in recent years have I taken a more dedicated approach to it. I can say with full conviction that I always knew the day would come.

When I was little, I loved disposable film cameras, and was most fascinated by the negatives that would come back in the paper envelopes from the developing service at the local chain pharmacy. In high school, I remember taking an early point-and-shoot digital camera with me to Ireland, and it became my primary objective to get the most beautiful images I could on a piece of equipment that would make your first-generation camera phone with a scratched lens look like a better option.

Then came college, when I got a Canon Rebel XT with two kit lenses. I even had a bag for it. Some concerts, some intramural basketball games, a few vacation landscapes. It was enough to at least get a hint of what the exposure triangle was... or maybe just that it existed (Google: How to make photo backgrounds blurry). Still, life got between me and a true commitment to photography.

And then, the iPhone. Instagram. Filters. In-app editing. I had high standards, I thought, so I was sure to wipe the lens on my t-shirt before carefully taking a photo. At that point, I had no way of knowing that an encounter in my career as a baseball information and communications professional in Major League Baseball would push me into a long-time-coming obsession with taking photos.

The year was 2018, and I was on the team jet heading to St. Louis for a series against the Cardinals. Our team photographer, Matt Dirksen (www.dirksenphoto.com) was in the same row as me, on the opposite side of the airplane. I went to take a seat next to him to check out the photos he was working on from the previous series. Eventually, we got to this point:

"You know, you should get a real camera. Your iPhone stuff is good, you actually make photos. You have an eye for it."

"One more drink and I might even buy one before we land, ha..." I said, mostly joking.

And then, it happened. A turning point in my life...

"HERE!", said someone a few rows up, as I was passed a 3/4-full bottle of red wine.

"Okay, Matt, what camera am I getting?"

And so it went. A few weeks later, Matt and I were in Moab, Utah, with another photographer, Kyle Cooper, and my lessons began. Once I began to navigate through the forest of the various dials and buttons, I found that I was truly learning to put forth what I saw and felt in the world with a camera so that others could see as I do. Since then, I've gone to new places and have returned to old grounds with this incredible medium for expression. Each time I pick up the camera, I'm trying to capture what it is I am experiencing most strongly about my surroundings so that I can bring you back there with me when you see the photo.

That is all I am trying to do with my work. I am not here for clicks or little red hearts on a screen. I will not refer to my own prints as "fine art", as that's for the viewer to decide. I invite you to look at my photos, ignore the noise, and come back to those places and those moments. Thank you.