My Story
 

I can’t tell you when exactly it began, but my love for the outdoors goes back to my early childhood. Growing up in a quiet, wooded suburb afforded me the experience of having large conifers, vine maples, and a salmon stream right in my literal backyard. At some point between climbing the western red cedar 25 feet from my back deck and exploring the creek everyday during the summer months, I developed a deep appreciation for natural spaces, large and small.

As time passed and adolescence came and went, teenage activities carried me further away from my immersion in nature. It wasn’t until reading “Into the Wild” my junior year of high school that I began to shift back towards a mentality of spending more time in the outdoors. I started getting out and hiking with my friends, although we were probably just looking for an excuse to go into the woods to smoke some weed. Nonetheless, this is where my love for nature crossed paths with my developing hobby of photography. While although it would be years later before this relationship was fully realized, the seed of my creative journey was planted.

About seven years later, with hiking becoming more passive and my photography less passionate, it seemed like an unlikely moment for the spark that led to where I am today. Taking a short break from a long term relationship created a void within me that I began to fill with photography.

It quickly became more than just taking pictures. The planning, the traveling, the return to nature. On the days when conditions were right, coming back home with images was just a bonus. The more I went out, the more I remembered why I originally got into photography. I had an eye for composition that came naturally, and my potential as an artist was becoming better understood with each frame and edit.

All of this comes together where I am today. Believing that each project and every trip has gotten me prepared for the next. I’m never done learning and growing; so who knows how far this will go, but I’m excited for the future and the many trails ahead.