A Snapshot of the Author

I started expressing myself through the written word. I studied creative writing at Cincinnati Country Day School and The University of Arizona, and I studied screen writing at New York University; but the words I write never communicate as well as the images I capture and create.

After graduating from film school, I needed a distraction from writers block, and I found that distraction in a camera. I began studying still photography in order to better understand cinematography, and in the process, I came to the realization that a camera is nothing short of magic that allows one to freeze moments in time.

This uderstanding might seem elementary, but the idea that the moments I freeze are my moments, my memories, made me rethink visual communication. The camera is an extension of my eyes and my mind, through which I can share my point of view, framed and focused on what is important to me. Furthermore, these frozen moments speak in ways that are far different from the written word.

Signs Along the Road

I was born in Columbus, Ohio, the heart of America's heart. While growing up in Cincinnati, I had the opportunity to travel all over the USA with my family, including Hawaii and Alaska. My brother-in-law was stationed at an Army base in Fulda, Germany, and I had the chance to tour Germany, Denmark, and Austria while visiting my sister. I even I saluted a nervous, young Soviet soldier at Checkpoint Charlie as we drove into East Berlin before the wall came down.

I drove alone through many states while staggering into adulthood. I attended college in Tucson, where I often hiked into the Arizona-Sonoran Desert and the Santa Catalina Mountains to find the rugged loneliness that inspired my writing assignments. I found a different kind of loneliness among the hardened herd in Manhattan, where I attended film school and pushed though the tough bustle of the streets in search of cinematic settings. While working in Los Angeles, I explored hundreds of miles of Pacific coastline seeking the perfect picturesque (and smog-free) seascape…and to escape the vacuous pseudo-life in the city.

I have had the priveledge of experiencing great diversity in the places I've lived and visited, and I have benefited from the wisdom of multiple generations within my family. My grandparents survived two World Wars and a Great Depression. My parents married in the 50’s before the social revolutions of the 60's, when they had their first three children. My siblings, who are 12–16 years older than me, inadvertently hastened my maturity, while their children, who are closer to my age, renewed my juvenescence.