I spent years
not answering
the thing that
kept calling.

This is what finally made me pick up….

HOW I GOT HERE

I grew up in a house full of artists. My mother painted. My brother drew, beautifully, constantly. I spent years looking for my version of that. But no matter what I tried, I never felt like I was truly creating. I felt like I was performing someone else's gift.

That feeling followed me into school. With four fundamentally different parents, I'd learned early to adapt, to wear whatever version of myself fit the moment, to blend into whatever room I was in. I had more friends than I could count, and for a while I thought that meant I was doing something right. But eventually it started to feel like I didn't truly belong anywhere, even when I was surrounded by people.

Photography didn't find me once…
It found me over and over again.

I grew up in a house full of artists. My mother painted. My brother drew, beautifully, constantly. I spent years looking for my version of that. But no matter what I tried, I never felt like I was truly creating. I felt like I was performing someone else's gift.

That feeling followed me into school. With four fundamentally different parents, I'd learned early to adapt, to wear whatever version of myself fit the moment, to blend into whatever room I was in. I had more friends than I could count, and for a while I thought that meant I was doing something right. But eventually it started to feel like I didn't truly belong anywhere, even when I was surrounded by people.

Then a Portrait Changed Everything

By my senior year I was struggling, depressed, acting out, skipping school. I missed portrait day. When it finally hit me that I wouldn't appear in the yearbook, the thought of being forgotten affected me more than I expected. It wasn't really about the photo. It was about mattering. About leaving some proof that I had been there.

Then something unexpected happened.

A friend of mine on the yearbook team was shooting an article called Setting the Scene, photographing students in their bedrooms as a reflection of who they were. She heard I'd missed portrait day and offered to include me.

Everybody knew me as the Bulls kid. So, she photographed me in my room, my jersey, my hair dyed like Dennis Rodman, my Bulls posters covering the walls. When the yearbook came out, she didn't just include me, she made me impossible to miss. Placed as the centerfold for the article, right before the school portraits began. While everyone else had the same traditional headshot, mine told you something real about who I was.

She unknowingly created a portrait that would change the way I see things for the rest of my life.

That was the first time I understood what a photograph could do when it was made with intention.

I even spoke to our school counselor on career day about pursuing photography. She didn't just discourage me, she made a case. Did I want a wife? A house? A car? Kids? Yes, to all of it. She pulled up salary data and built the argument, line by line, that this dream didn't add up. And on paper, she made it look impossible.

So, I listened. I put it down. Life moved on.

But photography kept finding its way back.

By my senior year I was struggling, depressed, acting out, skipping school. I missed portrait day. When it finally hit me that I wouldn't appear in the yearbook, the thought of being forgotten affected me more than I expected. It wasn't really about the photo. It was about mattering. About leaving some proof that I had been there.

Then something unexpected happened.

A friend of mine on the yearbook team was shooting an article called Setting the Scene, photographing students in their bedrooms as a reflection of who they were. She heard I'd missed portrait day and offered to include me.

Everybody knew me as the Bulls kid. So, she photographed me in my room, my jersey, my hair dyed like Dennis Rodman, my Bulls posters covering the walls. When the yearbook came out, she didn't just include me, she made me impossible to miss. Placed as the centerfold for the article, right before the school portraits began. While everyone else had the same traditional headshot, mine told you something real about who I was.

She unknowingly created a portrait that would change the way I see things for the rest of my life.

That was the first time I understood what a photograph could do when it was made with intention.

I even spoke to our school counselor on career day about pursuing photography. She didn't just discourage me, she made a case. Did I want a wife? A house? A car? Kids? Yes, to all of it. She pulled up salary data and built the argument, line by line, that this dream didn't add up. And on paper, she made it look impossible.

So, I listened. I put it down. Life moved on.

But photography kept finding its way back.

I Started Over…
More Than Once.

I Started Over…
More Than Once.

Eventually never came, until everything fell apart at once. My health. Relationships. My job. The ground I thought I was standing on. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, the quiet voice stopped being quiet.

It started screaming.

I walked out and bought my first professional camera. Two months later I enrolled in photography school. My first day in class, I told my instructor that I was going to become a professional photographer. I was excited about all of the possibilities ahead of me.

Within six months I entered my first competition and placed second out of hundreds of contestants. I didn't know yet what that meant. I just knew I wasn't wrong about this.

I sold my dream car to attend the Portrait Masters Conference where I got to meet some amazing photographers. Back at home I joined two other photographers and opened a studio. I was building something real. I was published for the first time.

We'd signed the lease in November of 2019. Four months later, COVID arrived and everything shut down.

Battled an autoimmune disease that took my energy and more than once my sense of self. Watched what I'd built collapse and started over. Signed on for a second studio and watched the owner sell it out from under us right as we were regaining momentum. Lost our Google listing and every review we'd earned along with it. Rebuilt again. Faced the kind of setbacks that would have made quitting look reasonable to anyone watching from the outside.

But I didn't know how to stop.

Along the way, there have been a select few who never stopped cheering, who believed in me in the moments I couldn't believe in myself, who showed up emotionally and spiritually without being asked. I carry that into every session I do.

I didn't fall into this. I've been fighting for it with all of my being.

Eventually never came, until everything fell apart at once. My health. Relationships. My job. The ground I thought I was standing on. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, the quiet voice stopped being quiet.

It started screaming.

I walked out and bought my first professional camera. Two months later I enrolled in photography school. My first day in class, I told my instructor that I was going to become a professional photographer. I was excited about all of the possibilities ahead of me.

Within six months I entered my first competition and placed second out of hundreds of contestants. I didn't know yet what that meant. I just knew I wasn't wrong about this.

I sold my dream car to attend the Portrait Masters Conference where I got to meet some amazing photographers. Back at home I joined two other photographers and opened a studio. I was building something real. I was published for the first time.

We'd signed the lease in November of 2019. Four months later, COVID arrived and everything shut down.

Battled an autoimmune disease that took my energy and more than once my sense of self. Watched what I'd built collapse and started over. Signed on for a second studio and watched the owner sell it out from under us right as we were regaining momentum. Lost our Google listing and every review we'd earned along with it. Rebuilt again. Faced the kind of setbacks that would have made quitting look reasonable to anyone watching from the outside.

But I didn't know how to stop.

Along the way, there have been a select few who never stopped cheering, who believed in me in the moments I couldn't believe in myself, who showed up emotionally and spiritually without being asked. I carry that into every session I do.

I didn't fall into this. I've been fighting for it with all of my being.

Living The Dream I Was Told Not to Chase

And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, the work started to speak for itself.

I got to learn from some of the best in the industry and made some amazing friends along the way.

I've been published in magazines and featured in news articles. I've won international awards for my boudoir photography. I've photographed best-selling authors, watched clients travel across Texas just to step in front of my camera, and built something I'm genuinely proud of, from scratch, more than once.

None of it came easily. None of it was handed to me. But I'm still here, still shooting, still completely in love with what I do.

The dream I was told not to chase? I'm living it.

And somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, the work started to speak for itself.

I got to learn from some of the best in the industry and made some amazing friends along the way.

I've been published in magazines and featured in news articles. I've won international awards for my boudoir photography. I've photographed best-selling authors, watched clients travel across Texas just to step in front of my camera, and built something I'm genuinely proud of, from scratch, more than once.

None of it came easily. None of it was handed to me. But I'm still here, still shooting, still completely in love with what I do.

The dream I was told not to chase? I'm living it.