I grew up in a small city in upstate New York, where some of my earliest memories of the outdoors are riding bikes through the woods on family camping trips. In my early twenties, I moved to Montana without a job or much of a plan beyond wanting to experience the West. Around that time, my uncle, a professional photographer, gave me my first SLR. I thought it was the coolest. A few photographs I made on a solo trip through Glacier National Park are still favorites to look back on.

Photography stayed with me after I eventually moved to Seattle, although how seriously I pursued it ebbed and flowed over the years. That changed after I left the corporate world in 2022. A more flexible schedule coincided with a series of mountain biking injuries and surgeries that made skiing and mountain biking, the activities that had long defined much of my free time, harder to pursue in the same way.

That experience changed my relationship with being outside. I spent years caring about how good I was at certain things. Losing some of that ability made me realize how little that mattered compared with simply being grateful that I could still get into the mountains, forests, and other places I love. Photography became a way to hold onto that feeling.

It has since become something close to an obsession. I’m always learning, planning, watching weather, studying other photographers, and looking for reasons to get outside with a camera. I love the time in the landscape itself, but I also love returning to those moments later while editing and seeing whether an image can bring some of the experience back.

Some of my photographs have received awards and been recognized in exhibitions and competitions. That’s gratifying, mostly because it means the work connected with someone besides me, but it isn’t really the point. The reward is still getting out there, paying attention, and occasionally coming home with a photograph I really like.