About Me
A Passionate Landscape Designer,
Photographer, and Traveler.
Destination Unknown.
Ours is a hard world, full of too much pain and sadness, terrifying events, and bad news. It’s a challenge to not miss the forest for the trees, to not forget that ultimately, Life is our reward. For as we consider mankind’s current plight and its many seemingly intractable problems, it is all too easy to believe that we are merely struggling to survive. That the best we human beings can hope for is that we only endure from one year to the next, while somehow not feeling that we’ve made two steps back for every step forward. But here I align myself with William Faulkner, who in his acceptance speech for his 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature, stated beautifully,
“I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion, and sacrifice and endurance.”
And, so, with this in mind, I choose to move forward in life, doing the best I can at what I love doing, at what matters to me, and hope for the best. That I am writing these words now makes clear that I don’t expect to simply endure; I plan to prevail. And in the end, I’ll hopefully leave this world a slightly better place for having passed through it.
Our world and its people are beautiful, and all life is a wonder. As a primarily artistic person, I sometimes think I am the worst kind of addict, a person addicted not to some drug of choice, but rather, selfishly, addicted to the magical potion that makes life wonderful and worth living. And what is this magical potion? It is an elixir composed of everything good: warmth, kindness, compassion, hope, love, sunlight, beauty, and so on. And, my god, I must have it to live!
“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.” ― Vincent Van Gogh
Yet sometimes, I feel a sense of kindness or compassion so overwhelming I feel as though I might break apart. Sometimes, I am filled with such a profound sense of love that I cannot fathom how it is possible to ever live without that love constantly and forever inside me. Sometimes, I see beauty so extreme I feel the need to tear my eyes out to keep myself from going crazy. And so my wonder of being alive is tempered by this ‘unbearable lightness of being’. And, for me, it is this unbearable lightness that makes Life its own reward. It’s what keeps me going. It is what gives me the strength to keep putting one foot in front of the other when life is hard. And, ultimately, this unbearable lightness of being is the peace I will surrender myself to after thinking my final thoughts at the end of my life.
My mission is to do the best I can in life while helping others along the way. I believe I can better my clients’ lives by creating art they live in with their families. I believe that if, through my photography, I can show others the world in my eyes, then somewhere, sometime, somehow, I will change a life for the better. Life is short. And mine is likely at least half-lived. I’ve stumbled and made mistakes. I’ve been overwhelmed by fear and made blind to everything I loved and held most precious. But I know that I have lived the best life I could and that my love has never been a lie. My work, both my photography and landscapes, illustrate the truth of who I am.
“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.” ― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
So, you can ridicule my words. You can call me a crazy hippy. You can decide I’m weird, or even call me a nut. You can deride me however you like. But reality does not allow contradictions. Of course, if you condemn me, then you are free to condemn my work and photography, and vice-versa. But if, instead, while visiting me here you find images you like, it is my hope that you’ll momentarily see the world in my eyes. And then, hopefully, you will decide that my mission is true. Or, at least, arrive at the question, “What if what he’s saying is true?”