I always tell people I think in photographs.

I first picked up a camera in high school because I wanted to take Myspace photos of me and my friends. But the summer I got my first camera everything changed. Instead of casual snapshots, I was making macro photos of plant life and dressing my friends in elaborate outfits to make portraits. Photography became my first great love.

At Virginia Commonwealth University I studied fine art photography and filmmaking, graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2013. There I learned everything from analog processes to digital workflows, location shooting to studio lighting, and how to tell a compelling story through images. But my aesthetic had been forming long before that. My dad took me to art museums as a kid. We'd stand so close to the paintings that the artists felt almost present, time the only thing that separated us. I was especially enamored with Caravaggio and Rembrandt: the drama, the chiaroscuro, the emotion. That's still what I'm reaching for every time I set a scene.

Although I've made all kinds of photography and video work, I come back to portraits. I find people endlessly fascinating: who they are, what they reveal, what they conceal, and how I can blur the lines between those things. To that end, I work closely with the people I photograph; listening before I shoot and staying curious throughout.

Photography is not just a medium to me. It's a way of seeing the world moment by moment. When I work with someone to create a portrait, I first see the image in my mind and translate it into the camera, iterating until the person's story, personality, and essence comes through the frame.