Currently living in Grand Rapids, I was born and raised off of Woodward Avenue, on the edge of Detroit. Growing up, the city was my playground. As a consequence of my urban upbringing, I take every occasion manageable to wear a suit, a tie and a hat. My vestments are a personal rebellion against the culture I live in; a reminder, for me, to exercise a mindfulness that was absent in my youth and is so important for my peace today.
The path that my life has followed has been a path created by wonderful people in many countries around the world, paved by photography. My life transformed when I stole my father's camera from his closet as a child, furtively rediscovering the world through a lens. Being an active observer gave me a role and purpose that previously did not exist in my life. My father never asked for the camera back, and I never stole again.
All of the enriching people in my life, too many to mention, and too important to stay silent about are proof of the goodness of the humanity. I am so very grateful to the people who have helped me, even when I was too prideful to ask and too arrogant to admit it. My wife is my true believer, not just in my work, but in me. I can only hope every day to prove her right.
Through all of the work and play that is my life, I always measure my virtue against a compass of compassion. This is rarely easy, but it is in the doing that poetry is found.
Currently I live in Grand Rapids, between Detroit and Chicago where I maintain spaces for meeting and shooting clients. As a photographer in the midwest, I am not terrible people and my pictures do not suck. [o]
On the board of directors for both The Geek Group and Give Camp Grand Rapids, I also sit on the Marketing Committee for the Susan G. Komen Foundation West Michigan.