Born in New York and raised in Southern California, I've always been the kind of person who was drawn to art and those who create it. As a lightweight kid with some damn big glasses, sports were never really my thing. Instead, you could always find me buried in comic books, playing all the latest video games, and watching tons of movies. My closest friends were insanely artistic and grew up to become successful illustrators, authors, musicians, & VFX gurus. I'd always envied and admired the creative talent they had, but never dreamt I could count myself among them.
this is my "testing the lights" face
As a kid, I looked forward to my next optometrist appointment like it was Christmas morning because it meant that I could look up at the trees and see each and every leaf moving in the breeze. When my parents bought me my first camera, I was obsessed with capturing the world as sharply as I could. I started to see things in everyday life that I'd never noticed before, like the impossible curves of a pillar of water coming out of the faucet or the golden rays of a sunbeam cutting through fog in the air. It was like opening up a window to the unseen world, and it soon became my favorite hobby.
At UCI, I earned a bachelor's degree in computer science. I wanted to nail down a secure career to give my future family the comforts my parents had given my brother and I, but my camera was never far from my grip. When friends started getting married, they'd often ask, "could you bring your camera?" Experience and intuition were my teachers, and I learned more with every shoot. When couples ended up liking my images more than the professionals', it became clear that there might be a future to this creativity thing.
I still hold a fulltime IT day job, but I shoot as often as I can on nights and weekends. Every session provides for a new set of interesting challenges and accomplishments, each more fun and rewarding than the last. It's as close as I can get to creating the art I've been passionate about my whole life, and I'm constantly humbled and fulfilled by the reaction of my clients to their images.
