I have always loved taking pictures, I was the teenager that always had a digital or disposable camera in hand and would randomly snap photos when people we least expecting it. While this didn't always lead to flattering photos of my subjects it has given me a lot of pictures that look back and reflect the true image of the moment they were taken. My college dorm room had a wall full of random pictures of Friends, Family and Teammates and looking at them always made me smile.
As I get older I realize more and more that my fascination with photography starts with my Grandpa, he always had a camera and was the designated photographer at all family gatherings or just general documentation of the grandchildren's assorted shenanigans. On of my favorite things to do at their house when I visited was to go through all of the photo albums that he kept in the living room, and while this was something I probably did on a weekly basis it never got old for me. While I knew he took hundreds of pictures in my life time it wasn't until he passed away at the end of my 2nd year of college that I realized the true volume and impact of all the pictures he had taken. In the initial aftermath of his passing the family gathered at his house and started to go through everything, the one that I remember bringing all of us together was the pictures. It started with a couple of cousin's and I sorting through them so that they could go to the people the pictures we of and as we went through them we started to talk about the stories that went with the pictures and about how much fun we had in those moments together. I adore the power a photograph has to preserve a moment even years later.
My ventures into less candid photography began when my college swim career ended and I was going slightly insane from the amount of free time I had without practice and competitions. I had recently gotten a Cannon Rebel T3i as a Christmas present and wanted to find something to take pictures of, so I asked a friend who had the same camera and a brother on the baseball team if she wanted to go to that weekend's game and take pictures with me. Well we ended up at almost every home stand for the rest of the year, through snow, wind and freezing weather. The next fall we both applied to be photographers for the athletic department. Every week I would post all the pictures from the weekend's sporting events on my facebook and tag any of the athletes who's profile I could find. I quickly started getting friend request from athletes and their families with parents and grandparents asking to be tagged in the pictures too. Many of the families lived too far away to make it to the games and often told me how much the pictures meant to them because it was the closest they could get to being at their child/grandchild's game. I had a few ask if I would send the files and how much I would charge for the pictures, I just sent them along, I wasn't doing it for money, for me it was a way to stay involved in sports when I could no longer play and a way to share something with the athletes and their families that I didn't get much with swimming and water polo.
While sports photography will always be a passion for me and hold a special place in my heart I have expanded to many other types of photography. I love photographing children's portraits and weddings, there is something special to me about being able to capture the special moments of a wedding or be able to preserve the sweet innocence of children who grow and change every day. I am always looking for new opportunities and challenges in my photography and design, looking for something specific or unique I got you covered.