Details, Details
At an early age I took an interest in writing stories and drawing pictures. Putting words on paper came easy to me. Unfortunately, the ability to render real life subject matter by hand was a skill never to be attained. Didn’t stop me from trying, though. Badly formed human faces and oversized horses are cute when you’re six. Not so much at 16. So, when I first picked up a camera in high school, I knew immediately this was the tool to facilitate the transformation of all those words and ideas swirling around in my head into visual, tangible imagery. I immediately took to photographing people—landscapes kinda bore me—utilizing their unique traits as the key in formulating my narratives.
I like to think I have a pretty good sense of humor (I do find that I can make myself chortle heartily). And I’m a sucker for sentimentalism, sci-fi, and butter. Now pair those with a vivid, fantastical imagination and an innate ability to optimize the heck out of life—the amount of grocery bags I can carry on my pinkie is mind-boggling—and you have me. A bit tightly wound with my head occasionally stuck in the clouds, but you’ll never eat a bad meal in my presence or run out of things to talk about.
My creative influences are mainly writers, such as Tom Robbins, Ayn Rand, J.R.R. Tolkien, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, and Isabel Allende. I enjoy the trivialities of day-to-day life and so I make this my focus when choosing a subject matter to photograph. I believe there is always a good story to tell, you just have to discover the right wording and add the appropriate enthusiasm (and embellishment) to make it interesting.
Schooling and Such
I graduated from Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia in May 2002 with a BFA in photography and received the title of McMurran Scholar, the highest achievement to be attained at that school. I then went on to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia with a combined merit and portfolio fellowship and graduated in May 2005 with an MFA in photography. I’m living in Winooski, Vermont, and enjoying every bit of it. #winooskimytown