For as long as I can remember, my father has been a person who creates things. He would carve beautiful, shiny bowls and boxes and toys out of simple blocks of wood, seeing in that blank slab something wonderful and unique and precious. I used to follow him around, gathering the wood scraps and trying to make something out of nothing, the way he did. It became second nature for me to notice the small, wonderful things in abundance around me. From the time I was a small child, I have seen beauty in details.

Photographs have always held a kind of reverent importance for me. I am immediately drawn to them in other people's homes, and the ones I love the best are the ones which tell a story or express some kind of strong emotion. And yet there is such a connection to the past in portraits, simple representations of who we were, what we looked like. In my photography, I strive to find a balance between capturing the simple "who you are" in a beautiful way, and capturing the quirky, humorous or emotional moments that make up your everyday. I thrive on taking that everyday, or that simple portrait, and creating art with it, something beautiful for you to treasure and pass down to later generations, something to say, "We were here, and this is who we were, and it was good."

My journey as a photographer began at the age of 12, when I enrolled in a photography class. We were required to buy a 35mm film camera; mine was a Minolta, my first. I have had some kind of camera in hand ever since, documenting life as it happens. I'm looking forward to documenting your life, be it your newest little baby, your high school senior, or your precious wedding day. Each image is a gift; something from nothing. It's real, it's beautiful. It's life.