In 2016, after my wife Susan died—after nineteen years of watching cancer take her piece by piece—I picked up her camera. I wasn't looking for anything specific. I just couldn't leave it on the shelf.
Susan was the photographer. She'd always been the one with the camera around her neck, chasing birds through the brush, waiting for that split second when light and wing and moment lined up perfectly. She saw things the rest of us missed. Beauty hiding in the in-between places.
At first, picking up her camera was about staying close to her. But somewhere in those early shots—blurry, underexposed, mostly terrible—something shifted. I started actually seeing. Not just looking, but seeing. And it helped. Photography gave me something to do with the weight I was carrying.
I moved to Bellingham, and the mountains and water here grabbed hold of me. I shot everything. I made thousands of “ok” photos. But I kept showing up, kept learning, kept looking. I was fortunate to know some professional photographers who believed in what I was doing. They didn't critique my work—they just offered encouragement. When they'd say something like "you have an eye for this," I knew they meant it. More importantly, I understood they were giving me room to learn, to make mistakes, to find my own way. That kind of faith matters when you're starting from zero.
After a year with her camera, I upgraded to a Sony A7 IV. That's when I stopped just fumbling around and actually committed to this. I was done dabbling.
Now, three years later, I know how to see light. Composition isn't a mystery anymore. The technical stuff has become second nature. And the best part? This isn't about honoring Susan anymore—though that's still in there somewhere. This is about my work now. My eye. My vision.
I chase light on trails, in the mountains, on city streets. I'm after those moments when emotion, place, and movement collide. Where something real is happening. Every shot I take has fingerprints all over it—Susan's, the mountains', the people I've known, the losses and wins that shaped how I see the world.
