As a kid I was gifted my first camera—a polaroid! I loved my clunky polaroid and carried it just about everywhere I went until I switched to a mini pocket digital point and shoot, which also never left my side. I took many poorly lit, badly framed photos but I didn’t care. This was the first creative expression I could never get enough of. I was fascinated with the concept that I could freeze a moment in time and then keep it. That it would be mine forever. And with time, I learned that if done with enough flair, it could also communicate an emotion to the viewer. As someone who balances optimism with the stark reality that these moments are truly fleeting, and life will change and people will come and go, I knew that it wasn’t enough (for me) just to live in the moments and let them pass me by. I had to capture them to stay with me and my family forever.

I lost a friend to a pretty severe asthma condition when we were only 8 years old, and this changed so much of how I saw the world. I remember realizing how quickly I suddenly couldn’t remember certain things about his features anymore, or whether or not he was taller than me. I remember seeing his two brothers without him—the third musketeer in their group missing, and realizing things didn’t look the same anymore.

But a photo… a photo brought it all back to my mind. It showed me all of the detail that time had now taken. As sad as this moment was, I was comforted by the lasting images of him that remained. I know, this sounds sort of morbid, but I don’t mean for it to. It’s reality, and I accepted that reality at a very young age. With time, I have learned to stay present, look forward to the future, and capture what I can in the moment, because realistically it’s all out of our grasp in a beautiful ethereal kind of way. But the more images I personally have to memorialize my life, the happier I seem to be.

This story of loss and beauty frames the way I look through my lens. I am not a fan of overly-posing people for my shots, unless we are trying to achieve an expression of strength, confidence, or storytelling. If I’m capturing you, I’m capturing you. I want to see the most authentic version of a person in the images I construct, because it’s not about being “perfect” but about capturing something real and authentic and true.