My Story
We can learn a lot from other people’s experiences, especially when we see ourselves heading down a similar road. And through my website I am often asked about my story. So I’ve written it out here in case it is helpful to others….
As a kid I always took pictures of what I loved. Family, pets, friends, my outdoor adventures and vacations. It was part of how I experienced the world- I documented my reality in pictures, and enjoyed showing it to others. It eventually became my deepest dream to do this for a living. So I took some photo classes in high school, and some photo + video classes in college. But I made a conscious decision not to choose this as my college major. Why? Because I didn’t want to be a photographer just because I liked pushing the shutter button. If I was going to do photography as a job-job (you know, the thing you get paid for?) then I wanted to use it to experience my world. To document the things I loved and hopefully make others care about those things too. If I couldn’t do THAT with photography professionally, then I’d just have to keep it as my hobby and find a different profession.
So I majored in Recreation & Tourism Management. It just made sense to me at the time. I figured that I could learn everything I needed to know about photography on my own, then if I failed at it professionally, at least I’d have something to fall back on that I really loved. Logic?
Anyway, that’s when I found Jesus. He gave me a love for creation & everything in it, plus an intense desire to experience it first hand. This developed into an interest in the developing world and issues of international human rights. I yearned to visit the harshest places on earth & give a voice to those in living in poverty who were suffering under oppression. And I wanted to use photography to accomplish this regardless of what that took.
So this became my vision for what I wanted to do with my life, but more than that it became my calling- it began to feel as though I was put here on earth for that very purpose. And that’s about the time that I discovered Samaritan’s Purse, an international relief organization that was based in my college town. I still remember walking through the doors of that building for the very first time and seeing 3 humongous prints of Indian street children hanging in the foyer. In complete awe of those pictures I thought, “Wow! Now THAT is the photography that I want to do for a living. THAT is what I will dedicate my life to… starting now!”
So I took an international missions trip with some friends after college graduation. I raised funds from church and family, and saved my own money to pay for it. This was my first real experience in the developing world. But it wasn’t an ordinary trip. It was a 2.5 month journey of trekking into some of the most remote terrain in South East Asia to perform an ethnographic survey of tribal minorities known to be living under severe religious and ethnic persecution. It was the adventure of my lifetime, and naturally, I made a photographic documentary of it and THAT became my portfolio.
So now I had a vision. And I had a portfolio of what I wanted to do. I was basically prepared. But prepared for what? And that’s when preparation met opportunity… Not long after my Asia trip a job opened in the photography department at Samaritan’s Purse. It was entry level, not a shooting position. But I knew it was a good place to start. My experience got me in the door, and eventually my portfolio convinced them that I could shoot as a staff photographer.
The rest is history….And guess whose pictures now hang in that foyer? Of course I’m still learning about my vision- defining my style and what I want to say creatively with photography. I don’t think that will ever stop & I’ve still got a long way to go. But I’m doing what I believe I was put here on earth to do.
I hope this story encourages someone that with faith and a desire to use your talents for good, anything is possible. Just don’t let someone else define success for you.