A little bit about Me
My love of photography began in 6th grade, with camera I “borrowed” from Dad. After many years of playing around with photography as a hobby, I began a decade of exploration into how I might make a living with it. I originally tried landscape photography because I really do love being outside and traveling around exploring wild places. I eventually gave up on that dream after a few years of having magazine editors tell me depressing things like, “Wow that photo is so beautiful, we really want to use it as a double page spread in our magazine and we’ll even pay you $100 for it.” That was not a very inspiring amount of money.
Eventually I was invited to shoot pictures at my sister’s wedding, which went very well and I realized that not only did I really enjoy it, but I actually got paid decent money.
That first encounter with wedding photography slowly led to more and more jobs until before long I realized that I could actually pay my bills doing this. At that time I was working part time as a Biology substitute teacher in the winter and as a rafting guide in the summer. In the fall of 2000 I became a father to a wonderful little guy named Jade. Being a dad suddenly encouraged me to quit playing around and get more serious about making a living at this wedding photography business and from there photography took over more and more of my life and eventually led me down some paths that I would never have imagined. Looking back on it now I can see how my own interests in new adventures and exploring the world seemed to naturally express themselves in the type of weddings I got hired to shoot.
The pictures I loved and showed off in my slideshows featured nature and adventure themes so it’s no real surprise that Couples who aligned with those themes would hire me, and they did! Lots of them did!
Along the way, that camera has taken me along on some amazing adventures. I look at all the spots on my photography map and each one is filled with memories of the people I’ve met and the things I’ve seen and done in each place. My portfolio slideshow probably brings back as many fun memories for me as it does for the couples I’ve worked with over the years. The faces of new friends, the taste of wonderful food, beautiful mountains, coral reefs with incredible fish, huge sea turtles, colored eels, birds, butterflies, rum, music, people dancing barefoot in the sand, deserted beaches, mangoes, the smell of Plumeria, wild rides with Rastas that fantasized of being nascar drivers, and thousands of muddy trails that wind deeper and deeper into the jungle…
Who would have thought a camera could take you to so many strange places.
A Few Shots From Hobbies and Kids
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- a work in progress
