The goal of my work is to invite its viewers to slow down for a moment and to look carefully at our world.My camera helps me to learn and better understand my own world, and I want to share what I have discovered. My images strive to distill complicated events into pure and accessible elements.
I learned the basics of photography during high school, using my father's beloved Rolleiflex and the campus darkroom. After college, post-baccalaureate studies in biochemistry, and an evolving series of research and strategic communications jobs, I found a niche working with advertising agencies. Starting with the healthcare division of Foote, Cone and Belding, I began to learn about visual communications, and how to make them memorable, impactful, and successful.
I started shooting professionally as a weekend apprentice to a busy Bay Area event and portrait photographer. Two years later I became a full-time staff photographer at a community newspaper. Wanting to grow professionally by working for a daily and for larger audiences meant trying bigger, deeper waters, and I left the paper's staff. Today, I freelance full-time, offering event, news, portrait, feature and documentary photography for editorial assignments and licensing, and for private clients.
As a news photographer, I enjoy working collaboratively with reporters and writers on community journalism projects. I also pursue independent documentary interests. I have been known to abandon an evening's plans to chase down a breaking news story. I love being outdoors and spend a lot of time exploring Marin County open space with my dogs --and my camera.
But I wish my father -- a career journalist educated at the University of Missouri -- were alive, and that he could see how much the loan of his treasured camera so many years ago means to me today.