About my work

I remember in middle school finding some of my mom and dad's old cameras just before going on a school trip. Over the course of the trip I was able to start to experiment with photography and I discovered it is something that I really enjoyed. Over the next few years, I started to get better at using cameras and gradually transitioned into shooting with a DSLR camera. This was when I truly started to develop a passion for photography and the work I was able to create. Throughout highschool I kept up with my photography when going on family trips and at many school events. Over time I was able to develop more skills and further my understanding of cameras. It wasn't until my sophomore year of college when I enrolled in a photography course that I felt that I had truly grasped the knowledge of photography and its related elements. One of the challenges I faced in this course was the use of film as I, up until this point, had never touched it in my life. 

My introduction to film photography was, while at first overwhelming and complicated, a necessary step in the further development of my skills. A statement I firmly stand by is that you can never be a true photographer until you have mastered the understanding of shooting and developing film photos. The entire process from taking a negative to developing a print in the darkroom exposed me to an entire side of photography I never thought I would be able to experience. This form of slow photography was able to highlight weaknesses in my shooting and, let's be honest, lack of patience. The ability to slow down and think about what photos I wanted to take went a long way in the development of my skills as I couldn't just take photo after photo and keep making small adjustments till it looked good. I had to fully grasp the understanding of what speed film I was using, how light or dark it was outside, what my aperture size was, what my shutter speed was and countless other variables that I used to be able to adjust using a touch screen.