I’ve always been a maker—drawing, painting, sculpting, and more with whatever materials were around me: pencils, napkins, sand, even Babybel cheese wax—yet there came a time when I thought that “creative” was an adjective reserved only for people who could think up entirely new worlds, and that I was therefore not creative enough, if at all. I’ve come to realize, however, that all creators are grounded to reality in their own ways; that creation is about transmuting your lived experience, of taking a few of the infinitely-possible perceptions of it and putting them back together in a way that’s anywhere from “essentially unrecognizable” to “as exact an homage” of the original as you desire. My creativity exists at an endless number of crossroads, and the more I see, the more ways I learn how to create, then the more that I can say. I want to be able to raise questions, spark awareness, and encourage empathy, curiosity, and joy; to relate people to one another in unexpected ways; to create dialogue within and across society; to strike the creativity that resides in others.

Photography specifically has always allowed me a freedom and ease of expression that other creative means never have. To be able to distill a moment with such inarguable honesty and authenticity in a spontaneous instant is an absolute gift to a perfectionist and over thinker. Photography has given me the gift of a practice of experiential gratitude, archiving my life and shaping my memory. I enjoy being able to capture what I witness in the world, in my own life, in other peoples’ lives, and show something that may not have been seen otherwise.