About Me

Whenever anyone asks me why I enjoy photography, I’m never satisfied with my own answer. I tend to give some unimaginative word jumble that mostly amounts to “it’s fun” or “it gets me out of the house.” It’s not that these are untrue, but I feel my cheeks turn rosy and a stumble over my words in some involuntary refusal to open my heart and actually answer how I really wish I could answer, because at the end of the day, they’re just pictures, right? Just a simple moment in time where something caught my eye. I anticipate rolling eyes and groans over how pretentious I sound just for thinking about the real answer. I feel like I can’t say that these moments don’t just catch my eye, that they demand my attention, pulling at the collar of my shirt with an ever tightening grip that will only loosen the moment I take the shot. Moments like when a cat sits in the windowsill all afternoon, the breath from her wet nose gently fogging the glass, waiting to welcome her human when they get home from work. When a raindrop reaches back to the cloud it left in the sky for just a split second the moment it splashes into its new journey, joining a puddle forming on a normally a cracked, crusted, and sun soaked sidewalk. Or, the way a curly haired little boy looks up at his mother with a bright smile for absolutely no reason other than knowing he would get a smile in return. Moments like these are where I feel that pull.

The problem with these moments is the second they’re born is the same instant they turn to memory and slowly begin to drift to the back of your mind like a browning leaf that was blown from it’s branch into a river. Day after day, year after year, they drift further and further in a gentle yet steady current. But, my camera and I can give them time. The time to wait, with great patience and good intentions, for the moment someone spares a quick glance or takes the time to offer an entire gaze, providing a chance for it to be that moment again.

Yes, I get it. They’re just pictures, but for the times when you get home and your windowsill is now empty after a long day at the office, you can be welcomed home again whenever you need. When you’ve moved away for college, far from your family for the first time, and you feel like you’re alone, you have the raindrop. When a mother misses her son, now away at school, she has a small piece of his soul in a frame to remind her she has his whole heart. If you were to ask me why I do this, strap me to my seat and force me to be genuine, require that vulnerability my body rejects, I would tell you that I get that they’re just random moments, but these moments beg for eternity and they deserve it. I would tell you they’re just pictures, yes, but they mean everything to me.