THE GUY BEHIND THE LENS

Hello, and thank you for taking the interest in my work and visiting my web site. I am a Florida born, combat infantry veteran, working a full time job now in the mechanical engineering field. I am happily married, my wife and I have three beautiful pups, those are our children.

A year ago, I jumped back into photography and I have been all about it ever since. Here is a brief history of my life and how I got back into photography and sharing my works with the world:

Looking back to my early school years, I can still remember wanting my parents to get me a camera. In fact, I remember my first 35mm camera I had received for sending in proofs of purchase of something, but I thought I had won some grand prize! I wanted to take pictures of everything and everyone, NONE of them turned out to be very good at all, normally VERY blurry and not much to see at all, but I remember how much joy it brought to me just to attempt to capture moments in time. I would take that camera everywhere, and come back with three or four rolls for my parents to get developed for me. As the years passed, that joy was lost and I had forgotten how much I love that feeling of being behind the lens. Fast forwarding a few years, shortly after 9/11, when we were attacked on domestic soil, I made the decision to join the ARMY under the job title of Infantry. Had a neighbor convincing me, but it made a lot of sense, if we are going to go to war, I should go with the job that has the most training in actual combat.

I went off and did my duties, and when I came back, many friends of mine stated that I was a changed man. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized any differences, but I guess there was a different stance I took, and how I seemed to watch my friends have fun from the outside and never really step out of the shell anymore.

“I changed…”, I remember thinking that to myself many many times, over the following years after returning from Iraq in 2004. I remember constantly stopping to think, “what would the old me do here? How would I have acted?”

There is a famous quote I recently saw in the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, LA

 

“One cannot go to war and come back normal.”

– Richard Proulx, Infantryman, U.S. Army.

 

That is surely the truth, it affects you in ways you can’t even know until it does and someone else notices. The effects from war and the stress of daily life overseas in a theatre of combat are gradual to the point that you don’t even know something is changing you. Nowadays I feel I could cry during a sad commercial. They say it’s something about mentally putting yourself in that position to remove yourself from your current one, and that you actually feel the pain of that role, as if it were real and your own. Not sure how else to describe it, but there ya go.

Anyway, enough about the sad stuff, I don’t want any boohooing for me or my situation. I went to fight for my country and I’ve learned to live. One way that I found helped tremendously, is by capturing life from behind a lens. Yes, you read that right, taking pictures! For a few short moments, I am able to step behind a lens and see life, nature, and beauty without all of the outside stressors that cause the anxiety. Behind a lens, I am nobody, but also somebody, I am someone that has everyones attention, but at the same time nobody’s attention. I am merely a vessel in an artful mode using a tool to capture life in still form. The relaxation during shooting is amazing, I am not checking to see who is around me, or if that car over there is about to jump the median and run someone over, or if that guy that just walked in looks shady enough to follow him and see what he is doing…I AM RELAXED and I am hooked on the euphoric state!

I want more of that feeling and I want to share my gift of photography with many many others, so please contact me for photoshoots, headshots, family photos, pet photography, modeling portfolio work, social media photos, and anything else. I am willing to work with anyone to attempt anything, just so that I can share it with the world and show that it was done and came out beautifully! I am also willing to do TFP photoshoots, I am a local photographer seeking work to build a portfolio, and I know there are models out there attempting to build their portfolios to gain the attention of larger name photographers and paying gigs. Lets help each other out and work together!

Please feel free to check out my social media pages and please “Like” and “Share”, as well as comment on everything you like or dislike. I am looking for all feedback I can get!

 

I am a social guy

FUN FACT

 

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