Photography has been my passion since age 15 when I had the extraordinary experience of taking a trip to Egypt. A life-changing trip for many reasons, I came home with a new perspective on life and was blessed with such a rich environment for capturing my experience on Kodachrome slides - remember that stuff? None of my work from that period has been scanned, so it's not available in digital format!
Now, as a professional portrait photographer, my mission is to provide a glimps into who my subjects are at a given moment. It is truly a privilege to enter into my customers' lives in this unique way at a special time in their lives. It is my job to bring out the best in each person and portray relationships in the most flattering light. Not just by the way people are positioned, but I also mean litterally in the most beautiful and becoming LIGHT. For most photographers, that's where the magic lies - in using light on our subjects to create beautiful, captivating images.
A quick note on Aspen Leaf: as a native Coloradan, the Aspen tree is one of our quintessential icons. One of my fondest memories is of a fall camping trip to the mountains when the Aspens were at their peak golden color. I'll never forget the millions of gold "coins" on the forest floor shimmering up at me. Our assignment was to capture Nature's beauty on film, but the hitch was we only had black & white film to work with.
The Aspen represent something far greater for me though. Did you know there's an Aspen grove in Utah that's considered to be the largest living organism in North America? Aspens (or Quakies as the locals fondly call them for their trembling leaves), grow in stands. A stand is a grouping of trees made up of stems which all share the same root system. They do not grow as individual trees, but as one large organism - each part integrally dependent on the vibrance of the whole. I love the symbolism of their interconnectedness. The interconnectedness of families is what I love to portray in the images I create. Children feel upheld and loved when they see themselves with their families - not just as a preschool assignment, but for their entire lives.
