Photography has always been in my blood.
My grandfather was a professional photographer and retoucher, and my dad was an avid hobbyist. When I was a kid, he set up a makeshift darkroom in our laundry room—I’ll never forget watching the images appear like magic in the developing tray.

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I experimented with every kind of photography, but portraits and nudes always pulled me in. I was constantly begging my friends to pose for me, and when they got tired of it, I turned the camera on myself. I loved experimenting with scientific film and cross-processing to see what would happen. (Of course, those same effects take about one click in Photoshop now.)

 

I was a bit of a late bloomer. It wasn’t until my twenties that I went back to school and earned a degree in photojournalism from San Francisco State. I liked the idea of covering different stories and people every day, but the reality was tougher. Being a fly on the wall wasn’t my style—I talk too much, and I hated having to hold back.

 

Everything shifted when I took a studio lighting class. That’s when I realized I wasn’t a journalist—I was a portrait photographer. In the studio, I could be myself: talkative, collaborative, in control of the lighting and atmosphere.

 

But during the pandemic, something changed. After watching George Floyd’s murder, I couldn’t sit still. That old journalistic instinct kicked in, and I grabbed my camera and hit the streets. I spent much of lockdown photographing social justice protests—capturing raw, powerful moments that reminded me why I fell in love with storytelling through images in the first place.

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These days, things are beautifully simple. I live in Marin County, and my studio is right in downtown Fairfax. But whether I’m in the studio or out in the streets, I’m always looking for the story.