Cook for a living. Photography, just for fun. Everybody dies.
I've known that I wanted to be a photographer from the age of 8 (1994). I got my first camera when I was 17 (2004).
I started like everyone else, taking photos of my family/friends/flowers and general surroundings. Back then, I liked to nerd out with 360° photography and macro stuff, Most of which was lost 10 hard-drives ago.
Moving forward in my career/life (from dishwasher to cook, age 18, 2004), and growing up in a small town, I didn't really see the opportunity to pursue photography as a practical profession. Besides, I was too caught up in video games to pay attention, well, to anything, really.
I spent my twenties moving around a lot, bussing from city to city, staging here and there. Sleeping on couches, floors, and staying at hostels.
[this is what my twenties looked like in one of those things that millennials include on their profiles]
My resume was as equally eclectic, with esteemed titles such as paper factory worker, masonry laborer, and EMS Responder/Dispatch.
Basically, I've cut more onions, mixed more mud, washed more dishes, emptied more fryers, and gotten more paper cuts, and been around more dead bodies than most people ever will in three lifetimes. I also joined the NAVY at one point, but they kicked me out right before boot camp graduation after discovering a heart-defect during getting TOP-SECRET clearance.
I'm really thankful for my experiences in life thus far: but I'm happy to have closed the chapter of Looking for Myself and have started working on Finding Myself.
I picked up a new camera, Christmas of 2016. Since then (2020), I've shot over 40,000 photos and rendered/published about ~38453 variants to my site. I spent my first year toiling in getting to know my camera and piddling around with different software. I spent my second year whiling away hours in open-source workflows. Most recently, I've been refining my composition (lighting, depth, framing, posing, expression, etc.), workflow, and portraiture.
Unfortunately for me, my aim has never been to make money, become famous, or get laid. The only reason I mention this is because I feel a lot of people use my mediums to pursue those ends and they've muddied the waters for the rest of us.
I'm truly dedicated to photography as my craft. It is what keeps me up at night. It is how I express myself.
My goals through in photography mimic my life goals, which are directed by abstracts based on: Collaboration, Community, Creativity, Archival, Agency, Absurdity, Public Access, Philanthropy, Art, Identity, and Self-Actualization.
Ideally, I'd like to be a non-profit photographer, doing caused based work and building an archive that museums will fight over when I'm dead.