ABOUT ME

Photography has been a love and way of life for me since I was 5 years old. It all started out after I purchased a Kool-Aid camera for 10 cents at a thrift sale (a piece of gaff tape currently holds it together). Once I started clicking, there was no turning back. The first images didn't come out quite the way I wanted them to and I remember thinking that I always wanted them to look just a little better. A few years later, with the help of some fine art and photography classes, I decided to explore people's stories through photographing them. This led me to graduate school, where I studied in photojournalism and studio photography. From there, I further worked on my craft by taking on internships in Shreveport, Louisiana, Syracuse, New York, and Salt Lake City, Utah.

Following my internship at the Deseret News in Salt Lake City in the spring of 2006, I moved back east and started a job as a staff photographer in sunny Central Florida at the Villages Daily Sun, covering a three-county span and centered around a large retirement community. I learned a lot from the people I photographed on a daily basis. Most of them had all "been there, done that", and many shared their life experiences with me. In addition to making photographs of them and starting a portrait study that I hope to finish, each person I encountered helped me to broaden my understanding about life and what's important.  

In the spring of 2011, after spending 4 years in Florida, I decided to move back to Central New York, where I currently work as the photo editor for the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, the newspaper I grew up reading. With the daily challenges of communicating stories visually with our audience, I continue working on new ways to broaden my awareness and knowledge in the world of photography and visual story telling.