Why I am a Photographer
Have you ever had an ache, an inner longing that just wouldn’t go away? Deep within me I have had a need to create for as long as I can remember.
Music was the first outlet for me. My mother dutifully took me to piano lessons as she had with my older siblings and I struggled with commanding my childish fingers to do as they were told. One day a corner was turned and I began to feel the music. I loved to play with LOTS of expression. My mother saw the rising interest and bought season tickets for the two of us to the local fine arts series of concerts and took me to the Shakespeare Festival. I never told her because I didn’t fully know it myself, but I didn’t want to just sit there and watch, I wanted to do it. I wanted to act, I wanted to sing. I wanted to dance. As I grew, I became frustrated that my hands and my voice couldn’t reproduce the art that was inside of me. I became an elementary music teacher. It was a practical choice.
As I was growing up, photography was a part of my life, as well, but it was nothing I took seriously. My father was an avid amateur photographer and one of our bathrooms doubled as a dark room. We washed prints in the laundry sink. For my 12th birthday, my father took me to a camera store and bought me my first “medium format” camera, a Yashica twin lens reflex that used 120 film. He taught me to develop BW film and make prints.
Then I met and married the love of my life, Neil. He was working toward the goal of being a high school English teacher but with access to cameras and a dark room a new passion was born within him. Two years later, teaching was set aside and our studio was born. Through his encouragement, I picked up a camera once again and discovered that this was the outlet for that inner longing that I had been searching for.
Why I am here:
There is something inexpressible within me, a need to say something that there are no words for. The view through my lens is my window to the world, the print on the wall is my notebook and each person that comes before my camera allows me to take a small peak at the miracle of life that God has given us.
I hope that some of what I leave behind causes people to notice, to feel more deeply what they already know to be true … to feel slightly more of whoever they are.
Accolades:
Master of Photography degree, PPA
Two time Oregon Portrait Photographer of the Year
Three Fuji Masterpiece Awards
Lecturer, consultant and mentor to professional photographers
Member of: Professional Photograpers of Oregon, Portland Metropolitan Photographers Association, Professional Photographers of America, National Association of Photoshop Professionals
Music was the first outlet for me. My mother dutifully took me to piano lessons as she had with my older siblings and I struggled with commanding my childish fingers to do as they were told. One day a corner was turned and I began to feel the music. I loved to play with LOTS of expression. My mother saw the rising interest and bought season tickets for the two of us to the local fine arts series of concerts and took me to the Shakespeare Festival. I never told her because I didn’t fully know it myself, but I didn’t want to just sit there and watch, I wanted to do it. I wanted to act, I wanted to sing. I wanted to dance. As I grew, I became frustrated that my hands and my voice couldn’t reproduce the art that was inside of me. I became an elementary music teacher. It was a practical choice.
As I was growing up, photography was a part of my life, as well, but it was nothing I took seriously. My father was an avid amateur photographer and one of our bathrooms doubled as a dark room. We washed prints in the laundry sink. For my 12th birthday, my father took me to a camera store and bought me my first “medium format” camera, a Yashica twin lens reflex that used 120 film. He taught me to develop BW film and make prints.
Then I met and married the love of my life, Neil. He was working toward the goal of being a high school English teacher but with access to cameras and a dark room a new passion was born within him. Two years later, teaching was set aside and our studio was born. Through his encouragement, I picked up a camera once again and discovered that this was the outlet for that inner longing that I had been searching for.
Why I am here:
There is something inexpressible within me, a need to say something that there are no words for. The view through my lens is my window to the world, the print on the wall is my notebook and each person that comes before my camera allows me to take a small peak at the miracle of life that God has given us.
I hope that some of what I leave behind causes people to notice, to feel more deeply what they already know to be true … to feel slightly more of whoever they are.
Accolades:
Master of Photography degree, PPA
Two time Oregon Portrait Photographer of the Year
Three Fuji Masterpiece Awards
Lecturer, consultant and mentor to professional photographers
Member of: Professional Photograpers of Oregon, Portland Metropolitan Photographers Association, Professional Photographers of America, National Association of Photoshop Professionals
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