About
I’ve been shooting since the age of five, always fascinated by cameras, as machines and by what they produce. The way they codify a reaction between your eye, brain and hands.
Early on I would save my paper route money, ride my mongoose BMX to Escondido and buy super 8 cartridges for my parent’s Kodak M2 Instamatic Movie Camera, about 12 miles round trip. G.I. Joe movies, Lego movies, BMX, break dancing.
Through high school I and my production group The Royalist Ones produced short narrative videos, mostly what you might call Tribute films, basically in-camera-edited on a VHS camcorder versions of The A-team, Saturday Night Fever, Star Trek, etc. We also made a few original films, scripted on-the-fly and shot in one or maybe two days. If nothing else we have a well documented adolescence (except for that one tape, the best film we made, that was copied over by Chuck’s dad with a high school soccer game.)
After a couple of aimless years at UC San Diego, where rowing crew was my main interest, I joined the US Navy and served as Deck and Weapons Department Yeoman and Navy Journalist aboard the USS Tripoli during Operation Desert Storm. It was a huge eye opener and the experience that solidified my choice to make photography my life’s work. After the war I studied Fine Art Photography and Anthropology at San Francisco State University.
As a professional I’ve worked in first stills and then video, primarily in fashion, music and documentary. I’ve had amazing collaborations with clients who became friends like iconic fashion designer Stephen Sprouse, photographer Max Vadukul and conceptual artist Mary Ellen Carroll. For the past several years I’ve been immersed in both shooting and producing a feature documentary about Spartan Race and its founder Joe De Sena.
