Raised on the edge of the Idaho wilderness, I was only a teenager when I first gazed upon the images of glistening skin by Herb Ritts and Bruce Weber, and the incredible studio imagery of Richard Avedon. I knew, in a heartbeat, that I wanted to make photography and film my life. Hugely inspired by filmmaker Stanley Kubrick’s early photographs, shot in one-point perspective, and by Kurt Markus, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston’s beautiful dictation of the West, Nudes and interesting yet stunning Portraiture.
I am still madly in love with those photographs – I even have them hanging on my walls – my vision has matured in so many ways. And so have my perceptions of the world.
Am I out there trying to be one of the photographers that influenced and inspired me? Yes and no. Yes, I’ve tried to look through their eyes and see the world as they’ve seen it. And no, I am on the road to my own personal artists journey.
What I’ve embraced from my mentors, both dead and alive, is their understanding of how these art forms can take me to places outside of myself even when I’m not holding a camera to my eye.