I’m a photographer, writer, businessman, woodworker, skier, backpacker and outdoor enthusiast. But most importantly, I’m a husband and father.

I have 5 children and they have me. Just about everything I do is for their ultimate benefit.

I choose to willingly, and happily give everything I have to them.

Becoming a father was easy…it only took a few minutes.

Becoming a Dad though. I really struggled the first 8 years to get past my own selfish desires.

Kids won’t let you give just a piece of yourself to them, you either give it all or they’ll find a way to take it. Your choice.

I choose to willingly give them the best parts of myself.

Photography

I’ve been a photographer since the 1980’s. (See my early work here) I love photography. I go to photo fairs, read photo books (picture books, my wife calls them) and think about photography all the time.

I went to a fine photographic school called Brooks Institute of Photography from 1995 to 1998. Back then it was a mystery, how to properly use film and cameras.

Now you can learn photography with instant feedback from digital cameras and YouTube. Brooks is gone now. It closed in 2016.

Portrait Photography

During my course work at Brooks I photographed everything: houses, babies, Tide detergent and landscapes. I agonized over what to do with my skill and talent as a photographer. That dilemma brought many philosophical questions. The most important was “what am I photographing and why“.

One summer vacation I paid a visit to my wife’s Grandmother. She was a lovely woman living in the small farming town of Wendell, Idaho. At the time I was thinking about my career and tumbling ideas around in my head about what my photography meant and what it would be used for.

On a wall as I passed from the living room to the kitchen I noticed the high school senior portraits of her 10 children nicely framed and organized in birth order. It struck me that these photographs were decades old but priceless to her and eventually to her children and grandchildren and so forth.

My decision to pursue portraiture became clear at that moment.

I worked very hard at my portraiture for over 10 years. I owned my own studio in Boise, Idaho and sold it to pursue a big, fancy studio in San Juan Capistrano, California in 2005.

Then the housing crisis of 2008 struck southern California really hard. I lost the majority of my revenue within weeks. I had just purchased the studio a few years beforehand and still carried debt to the bank and previous owners.

I couldn’t make the loan payments or pay my staff. I lost everything in 2009.

Bankruptcy, shame and coming back to my hometown of Boise Idaho was the result.

A new chapter

I stopped doing portraiture at that time. Too painful. My youngest brother (12 years younger) was just graduating college, and thanks to the difficult economic climate he couldn’t find a job.

We started a company together; Page One Power. Now it’s the world’s leading SEO linkbuilding firm. I still own and operate that business. I also help run my company Outdoor Empire, an outdoor gear review business.

But I still spend as much time as possible shooting portfolios, researching and investigating the world of fine art photography – trying to exhibit, publish, speak and teach. Visit my fine art photography website.

This blog is an outlet for my thoughts about family life, photography and the lessons that I’ve learned along the way.