Tell us a bit about yourself.Where are you from? How long have you been shooting for? Why photography? What is it about the medium that speaks to you?

I grew up in Northern California, Yountville specifically. It was pretty rural back then and there was tourism for the wine industry but this is well before Thomas Keller’s French Laundry and the first dot com boom. We had lots of open space and of course zero technology. We learned to be pretty creative in entertaining ourselves but there was a lot of boredom which mostly turned into wreaking havoc on any land we could sneak on. I started skateboarding and playing music which introduced me to more like minded kids like myself and eventually picked up a camera. Like most stories go I started taking pictures not having any idea how to properly work a camera and began my journey by failing miserably. It was a Nikon FM handed down from my uncle and at the time I couldn’t tell you a thing about what I was holding in my hand other than it captured a photograph. Influenced by skateboarding and the magazines I was reading I began documenting our skateboarding and my friends hanging out. I started playing music as a drummer and touring in hardcore bands which in the 90’s was a great scene in the bay area. Lots of great bands and a good community supporting it. I enjoyed what I was capturing, mostly portraits of friends but images just weren’t coming out so I started going to Longs drugs buying disposal point and shoots which yielded much better results (laugh). I was really into film making and knew there was work in the film industry, I really had no idea being a photographer was a real job. I found myself at the academy of art college in the film program right out of high school and that’s where I learned how to operate a still camera properly. I fell in love, ditched the film department at the AAC and ended up studying photography at Brooks.

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