I have been obsessed with photography as long as I can remember. On my 12th birthday my father bought me my first camera, a Minolta High-matic 7S, 35mm rangefinder. It was a jewel in its time, and with it I caught the bug. My formal education in photography began at age 14 while attending Florissant Junior High located in the St Louis suburbs. There I eagerly enrolled in a photography class being taught by a working professional photographer named Frank Goza. Turned out that Mr Goza was the team photographer for the St Louis Cardinals football team. In his courses I learned how to mix the darkroom chemicals, process, develop film , and print my own pictures. A year later we moved to Washington state where I attended Rogers High School in Puyallup. After graduating from High School, I succesfully completed a Advanced Photography Program being offered at Fort Stillicom Community college(now called Pierce County CC). Here I got a chance to futher develop my skills thus gaining valuable experience working with more advanced photograhic equipment and learn by studying the works of great master photographers.
In 2005 I decided to embrace the new digital medium, scraped together my meger saving and purchase a Nikon D2x . Then in 2006 I decided to explore going into Studio Photography. I learned about a studio lighting workshop at that was being offered at Abolins in Tacoma ( now gone,a victim of the digital revolution and the economy ). The workshop was ran by veteren Ray Jeanotte (who had studied under the famous NY photographer Joe Eisenberg) and his assistant Todd Cheney. I found the workshop to be very informative and a month later I decided to take the plunge and purchased a 2 strobe light kit. A month after that I purchased a third strobe light and 2 different size softboxes. Ray recognized my talent and often invited me back as a guest photographer on other workshops. It was after one of the workshops when Ray surprised me by showing a video clip of me that had been made of me during one of these workshop. I had been so immersed in what I was doing, I was totally unaware there was a video being recordered ( one of my hallmarks ...intense focus on what I am doing ). I was told by Ray that the person who had recorded me was impressed with my ability to work with inexperienced models. It was a big personal confidence booster and it inspired me to keep going in this direction. Its a primative video but enjoyable, and at times funny to watch. I will upload this video on YouTube and provide a link. Through Ray I learned a lot about booking and working with professional models.
During this same time period I was working full time at one job and doing all my photography business on the weekends as a side business. It was a struggle as I was literally working 7 days a week 16 hours a day. Talk to and booking clients during the week, while on breaks or after work. I would do all my shoots on the weekend, post process images during weekday evenings, then starting the cycle all over again. In between all this I was learning how to develope a web site, develope marketing skills, mastering photoshop, and trying to stay on top of all the digital trends that were suddenly springing up everywhere. When you hear other photographers tell you the importance of developing workflow they aren't kidding,. I did however manage to make enough money that I was able to reinvest all of it into improving my equipment, buying a few more prime lenses, a newer higher end wireless monolight stobe system. That same year I also joined the PCPPA (Pierce County Professional Photographers Association ) to intergate myself with other local photographers and learn through shared experiences. In 2007 I gained recognition by my peers winning the PCPPA " Best of Portrait " and again in 2008 winning "Best of Portrait" , "Best of Commerical " , and " Best in Show". Some of my prints were displayed at the 2009 Puyallup Fair Photo Exhibition.
So in 2009 I decided to go from being part time professional to a full time professional photographer. I had mostly done Portraits and modeling Portfolios up to this point in time with a few wedding done as personal favorites to family and friends thrown in between. In 2009 I decided to start offering my services as a wedding photographer since I was no longer limited to just part time availability. I thank Shane & Chrissy , Khristina & Matt for letting be their wedding photographer.
People always ask me what type of pictures do I take. Its difficult to explain since I like to photograph anything that catches my eye. Be it a landscape, beautiful woman, action, or a surreal play of colors and reflections. I am inspired and enjoy the technical challenges of trying to recreate images by master artists. I always enjoyed the pin-up art style of the Vargas Girls ( bold colors and uncluttered looking ) and they are a great source of inspiration when I work on modeling portfolios. I have always liked going to museums and found many inspiration from the classical oil painting and scupltures. You can see the influence in some of my Fine Art images. In a nutshell I find myself shooting mostly in the classical style. I think to many photographers get caught up chasing trendy stuff which have a bad habit of disappearing just as quick as they appear. I tend to see myself primarly as an artist , second as a photographer, and lastly as a businessman. Time may prove me wrong but I feel if you master the artistry (quality) , learn the technical side of producing consistant quality of work, the business will be there. Spend to much time focusing on the business ( more money, ) then your heart is not really focused on making the customer happy with the quality of your craft. Nothing spreads the word faster then the WOW! factor by happy customers.
I will continue to update this blog and add additional pages showing examples of my work and a brief discription of what inspired me.
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