To this day, I can remember the first time I set foot in the black-and-white darkroom at my high school. It was magical seeing that developing image appear from, seemingly, nothing on the paper negative that had just been exposed in a Quaker Oatmeal pinhole camera. I was hooked. That led to getting my hands on my Dad’s 35mm, an Olympus OM-1, as often as I could—learning the basics, taking pictures of the landscape that surrounded our Vermont home, and probably burning through too many rolls of film photographing our family’s dog.

While photography wasn’t the first thing I went off to college to study, it remained close to my heart, and at some point I realized what career path I really wanted and needed to be on. I eventually found my way out of my beautiful home state of Vermont and enrolled in the advertising photography program at RIT, in Rochester, NY. Now, even after having worked nearly 19 years among Rochester’s creative community, some days it seems as though it’s only the beginning.

It’s the ingrained passion for my craft that has led me down this path. The excitement that comes from creating with the camera, and the learning that takes place with each new experience; allowing the camera to become the vehicle for exploring and immersing in areas of curiosity or fascination, new places, lifestyles, ideas, or techniques; coming into contact with people from all walks of life and professions; that’s the stuff that fills my tank.