Tell me about your people.

Maybe I’m supposed to put some words here about accolades or accomplishments or process. The thing is, that stuff isn’t most important to me. What is? Great storytellers — the folks who create and document life with the kind of empathy and connection to their work that puts people right inside the story. That relationship, more than anything else, drives me to support the story.

Whether it’s a Tzutujil family working an ancient fabric loom to eke out a living among the volcanos of central Guatemala, some folks sitting next to me in Baltimore’s Northeast Market, or a group of Veterans riding their motorbikes across America to honor POW/MIAs; the folks I meet through stories make me fall in love with my work over and over again. My job is just to put my two hands on some tools and then get out of the way.

By way of background, I started as a Sports photographer for my small, liberal arts university in the Midwest. I was tapped to shoot soccer because I was the only person with a lens that could reach reach mid-field; but more than anything I cared about the game because of the players. Within a few months I was Editing the Sports section of the paper and shooting from the sidelines at the National Championships Soccer Tournament in Boca Raton, Florida.

Today I gravitate to shooting documentary, reportage and street portraiture. Some of my work has accompanied stories from St. Cloud, Minnesota to San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala including Community Skatepark builders in the midwest and the work of Kansas City Mayor Sly James to improve early childhood literacy.

I’m a failed piano player but I still use one along with any of several guitars to compose and record music and I’ve scored and licensed songs for podcasts and documentary and feature films including The Vatican Tapes, The Missing Man, The Next American Dream, and Run, Hide, Fight.

Today I live with my partner and our dog, Gilbert, in East Baltimore, Maryland. On a good day I run from the Northeast Corridor to the Inner Harbor chasing good light and good sounds and living to meet good people.