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Born in Florida, raised in Ohio, and then living up and down the East Coast, I’ve collected a wide array of settings. Each is rich in color and vibrant with personality. When we enter nature or someone’s home or a venue that meant nothing yesterday and everything tomorrow and be present with our families, cascading emotions fill the air. There’s always a moment. It’s impossible to explain and imperfect to capture, so it’s a treasure. It’s the semi-blurred smile of a child whose movements tomorrow could not re-enact today. The casual laugh of a husband uncomfortable with a witness to the attention he shows his wife right before he forgets I’m there. The way a woman whose days are overflowing with scheduled activities, messy rooms, and food-smudged clothes can lose herself and find herself all in one close of a shutter. Writing this brings a near tear to my eye as I think of the places I’m invited into and the honor it is to see art in everyday moments.

Most of the time, when I show up at a photo shoot, we have already discussed an idea or a feeling that someone wants to present. Pinterest boards and sample photos have passed back and forth, and some discussion of outfits, hair up or down, weather, and locations. The truth is that despite that being a regular part of people processing the investment of a photography session, the best moments are unscripted. You write the story naturally, just being yourself. Some of the greatest photos I’ve taken weren’t planned photoshoots but instead when people allowed me to exist within their reality for a few moments without a fleeting thought of style or the unknowing competition to fill their feed with perfect.

Though my art is in stills, my mind remembers each of these stories like a silent film. Only as we move through a session, it’s as if a unique soundtrack only I can hear begins to play softly in my mind. What starts as an interaction ends as a story. Thank you for considering me to be one of the authors of yours.