Soon after graduating, a Canon Rebel Digital camera replaced that old Kodak and I soon began experimenting with aperture and shutter speeds. I had already been through two courses in Photography in school, but the digital age now allowed me to experiment and delete images that came out awful. Nothing like self-education I say! Friends were beginning to hiring me for a few shoots here and there and fortunately my art background help with composition as well as themes of the imagery. I was still going to interviews to be a graphic designer. But during one interview is where things changed for me. A young photographer girl who was an art director looked through my portfolio (the design one) glancing back and forth between the photography images and design pieces and said to me point-blank: “ Your photography side is drastically stronger than your design side.” THAT is all I needed to hear. It was something that I had always considered for a few years so it was quite a relief to hear from someone in her position.

A few years later, the photographic self teaching stopped, when I became photo assistant for a large auction company in Dallas. During my time there I worked under seasoned catalog photographers by helping them shoot everything from civil war rifles, Americana historic antiques, comics, illustrations from the early 20^th century and even a warehouse full of…get this….stuffed trophy animals! When I came there, I had no idea even what a C-stand was or how lighting could alter how an image could look. But as time moved on, I began to see how creative lighting and photographic set design can drastically change how bad ass a piece of merchandise or a portrait of a person can look.  I began to think exactly like those cats who have been doing this for 25 or more years. I quickly realized that catalog photography is not just sticking something on a white background and shooting it. For those of you who may not have received a degree in photography but have a huge passion for a photographic career, I cannot stress this enough:  PLEASE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ANY SUCH POSITION TO WORK AS A PHOTOGRAPHIC ASSISTANT.

In order to dish out all the knowledge I was learning there, upgraded my camera to Canon 40D and 3 studio heads.  It was now time for to take the photographic knowledge from my assistant job and the my creative background from my art degree and merge them together to propel myself as a photographer. Adding to my collection of equipment, are two speedlights, transmitter and receiver for on location lighting work, which help the creative flow using lighting where plug outlets are nonexistent.  With that said, here is a collection of images of mine from the past then from the present. I like viewers of my work to get a sense transition from imagery. Not to mention it’s important for any photographer to look back at their work and see how their work has changed over the years:

Fast forward into the Time machine…..

That’s all for now folks….hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more in the future!!!