I spent some of my childhood living on an Island in the South Pacific, American Samoa.

This is where I first noticed light and reflections, and by the time I was nine I knew that I wanted to create and capture images, to be a photographer. This exotic locale was literally an eye-opener, and my passion to capture color and line and people took off.

My goal has always been to produce photographs that will make the viewer stop and look and feel. My vision comes from deep within me and is in the choices I make. Because of my father's and mother's work as a youngster I have lived in many exotic places from Samoa to Hong Kong to Saudi Arabia. I've seen a wide range of different peoples and customs, contrasting architecture, and skylines and landscapes. But there is always the beauty of people and their emotions and the joy of making images. Sometimes the choices are conscious and sometimes coincidental. They still surprise and excite me every time I shoot. The magic is the satisfaction of planning and capturing, not unlike netting a lovely butterfly. Ultimately I delight in inspiring people. I want them to take a break, if only for a moment, and go inside themselves, to stop and feel. Of course, I always want to have fun at a shoot. For me, life is too short to do anything else.

I am mostly self-taught but have worked with some of the top photographers in Los Angeles, and I've learned a great deal from them. One photographer in particular, James B. Wood, believed in me and encourage me to shoot with a sense of style that I think is unique to my point of view.

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