From the time I was young I was drawn to photographs.

Almost every day growing up I’d look through our many family photo albums, studying them cover to cover, liking the emotions they stirred in me. Maybe it was the inner documentarian or just the sentimentalist in me that pulled me into it. See, I was the kind of person who just had to write in my diary every day before I forgot a single detail. I just had to ask my elderly relatives questions about our family history before it would be too late to ask. I just have to keep our entire collection of old home-movies safe in my closet until I can get around to preserving them digitally someday.

The same urgency applies to my photography now. I just have to take photographs — to document this one life I’ve been given with the people I love and the places I go. But I don’t just have to, I actually want to. Capturing moments of people and places that will turn into memories one day is one of the greatest pleasures I’ve known. Being able to bring others joy through my photos of them really blesses me.

Photographs have the power to so incredibly move us. And this is what I want to convey through my images of the people and things I capture: a remembrance for what once was, a thankfulness for what now is, and a hopefulness for what still could be. To see the gift life truly is.

I like to believe my own soul is laid bare through my photographs of people, of places, of beauty in all its forms, and I plan on growing in the art of photography my whole life long. I feel so alive, so much like myself behind that camera lens, and my hope is to make others feel the same way in front of it!