About me
I photograph flowers as one might paint a portrait—intimately, deliberately, and with full awareness of mortality.
My first experience with photography was beside my father, photographing flowers together. After his passing, I returned to the same subject—not as sentiment, but as continuation. The work carries that origin quietly.
In the studio, stripped of landscape and cliché, the flower becomes a structure under tension—flesh and architecture, bloom and collapse existing simultaneously. I have always disliked cut flowers; their beauty is inseparable from severance. That discomfort is central. The flower before my lens is living through its final gesture. I photograph it not to romanticize it, but to confront the paradox: beauty intensified by impermanence.
Light is everything. It is not decoration; it is construction. I work in darkness because darkness clarifies intention. Light, rationed carefully, reveals form with precision and consequence. Every highlight must justify itself. Every shadow must carry weight. Drawing from the chiaroscuro tradition, I use illumination not for drama alone, but for structure—for shaping emotion through contrast.
This philosophy extends beyond botanical work. Whether I photograph flowers, portraits, or objects, the approach remains the same: bold form, deliberate concept, and lighting that is inseparable from meaning. An image must have presence. It must hold tension. It must feel intentional. Concept is architecture. Emotion is the outcome.
Scale transforms fragility into monument. Enlarged, these forms lose politeness and become confrontational—almost anatomical. I aim to freeze the moment not as decoration, but as impact.
My work—fine art and commercial alike—is built on the belief that ideas matter. That light is language. That emotion is the measure of success. The subject may change, but the pursuit remains constant: to create images that are strong, deliberate, and impossible to overlook.
These photographs are meditations on impermanence, inheritance, and presence—an ongoing dialogue with light, tension, and the human instinct to hold on, even as things fade.
Education:
2001 Master of Art in Studio Art - New York University
1999 Bachelor of Fine Art in Painting - Kansas City Art Institute
1995 - ’97 Photography Studies - Brooks Institute of Photography
Awards:
2025 Honorable Mention - Black & White Spider Awards - Still Life
2024 Merit Winner - Black & White Magazine - Portfolio
2018 3rd Place - Black & White Spider Awards - Portrait
2017 3rd Place - Black & White Spider Awards - Fashion
2016 2nd Place - International Photography Awards - Advertising (Music)
2016 Honorable Mention - International Photography Awards - Fine Art (Portrait)}..
2010 3rd Place - International Aperture Awards - Portrait
2007 1st Place - Premio Lux Awards - Fashion