Producing images for my clients often requires curating the very best handful of images, narrowing down the best range of expressions, poses, and exposure settings.
But I also like to capture the moments at the edges of scenes when no one is thinking about the camera or the session process; the most personality, confidence, and authenticity is often found there.
Available for hire on a wide range of projects.
Based in Topanga, CA. Will travel to work with good people.
SET/STAGE/studio
Much of my early photographic work grew from my career in music production, where I worked with many vibrant characters in some loud colorful spaces. As I quietly developed my skills behind the camera, some of my musician friends/clients started hiring me to capture their studio sessions, live shows, album art work, and press photos. I love getting to help shape how a project both looks and sounds.
Over the last 7 years I’ve been doing a lot more photo work for actors and theaters, most notably A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago. I could write 1000 pages about my profound creative and personal experiences there. Uniquely talented people and brilliant scripts make that room feel like so many different universes, and that building feel like a collective living being. I have grown as an artist and human because of my relationships with these complex stories and the skilled professionals that tell them.
Most everything I work on is driven by good music, great people, and compelling stories, so capturing light & sound for creators of all kinds will always be an important facet of my work. I’m grateful that all the time I spent in recording studios and theaters in Chicago thoroughly prepared me for capturing production images and other media on film sets in Los Angeles...
wilderness
photo/video/drone media coverage for a wide range of projects:
•ecological survey and restoration sites
•private and commercial farms
•real estate developmenT
•outdoor & camping gear marketing
•short films & other creative ecological video projects
•social media for non-profits
•projects managed by local, state, and federal park services/orgs.
Some of my best and favorite work is done outside. When possible, with my feet in the dirt or well off the ground. Often with quiet music in my headphones or in my head, I am usually listening for the wild and its creatures to sync up nicely with my music.
one of the most rewarding aspects of my work is filming from high above via drone or carefully perched in an open helicopter or airplane. Seeing the sum of details below as if an omniscient bird or insect, I try not to take it for granted and make sure to enjoy some long pauses and deep breaths each time I’m up there.
My Creative work and my camping adventures sometimes intersect, and I intend to make that happen more often…so let’s go tf outside and make some photographs together.
HUMANS
When I was a smaller animal, my parents would get my 35mm film developed at the local grocery store. Opening that envelope was like getting a birthday present, and I still have some of those prints 40 years later. I would always look for the imperfect images first, with some motion blur or awkward faces or half captured scene at the end of a roll. That's what actual life looks like to me: sometimes odd and hopefully never too serious.
Available or head shots and portraits, in studio or on location.
interior design/Real Estate/Construction
Some of the creative spaces I have visited and worked in had a tangible sense of ‘home’, where the art/music/furniture and the spaces themselves were reflections of the people and personalities that curated them.
Tasteful design and timeless style add many layers to the scenes I capture, and I intend for my work to bring the viewer into these spaces and scenes to feel a bit of their character and life within, even if there are no people in the room at the moment.
Available to capture photo/video for interiors/exteriors, site progress, home sales, etc.
From the ground, drone, or helicopter.
Selling or renting a home? Redesigning or remodeling?
Let’s work together to create the images your beautiful space deserves.
Architecture & Cityscapes
Most of my early attempts to be a photographer featured design and architecture in Chicago and sometimes New York. Buildings were far more patient subjects than people, and I enjoyed the slowly unfolding dialogue between my camera and the architect’s ideas. Now living in Topanga in LA County, my eyes and my camera are busy taking in all the vibrant and diverse design, style and colors that I had never seen in person before. I love the architecture of Southern California and feel more at home here with each structure I learn about and capture.
Photo/video/drone available for for historical projects and throughout new construction development.
Now booking in SoCal and beyond.
FOOD
Though their finished works are inherently temporary, culinary artists are often telling very long stories about their lives, personalities, families, and artistic influences through their fleeting creations. Detailed maps to old and new ideas can be found on pages of cooks’ books, with cliff notes to the sensory journey retold through photographs that lend at least some permanence to each piece of perishable art.
Sessions typically take place in clients’ businesses or homes, but I also can host sessions in my live/work space in Topanga with modest kitchen and indoor work space,
gated tree filled outdoor space with mountain views and access to hiking trails!
products & handmade goods
As someone who cannot draw even a stick figure, I have a deep appreciation for artists who get into a flow state while making things with their hands and minds.
I’m grateful that I get to collaborate with such talented artists and fabricators and makers, and be affected by so many kinds of art and people.
I welcome all kinds of collaborative marketing/imaging projects, especially those with smaller companies, entrepreneurs, and local artists.
Sessions can be on location or in my modest cottage photo studio.
Attended and remote sessions available.
Lets meet up and make a plan to photograph all the cool stuff you’ve made!
exfiltration
Chicago is a great city to grow up in but I had to move somewhere near an ocean. Here are some of the things I have seen since moving.
<art ¿ prints>
some of the things I see from underneath the scratches in the shiny paint
