My first real picture, "Long Convoy", taken in Al Anbar Province, Iraq.

My foray into photography began back in 2005 as I was gearing up to deploy to Iraq with my unit Bravo Co. (-), 4th Amphibious Assault Batallion, 4th Marine Division.  A few months prior to that, some of us volunteered to go to the Gulf region to search for survivors right after Hurricane Katrina hit.  What I saw there was both amazing and terrible, but I had no way to document it: I didn’t own a single camera. 

With a trip to Iraq looming in the near future, I didn’t want to get caught in the same position again, so I went out and bought me the “purtiest, fanciest” point-and-shoot camera they had available… at Best Buy.  Yeah, I didn’t exactly do any research, but God blessed with a decent Canon, and with it I took a couple of pictures I’ll probably never have the chance to take again.  The photo, “Long Convoy” was the first one I took that really made me appreciate what someone could do with a camera.  It still ranks as one my favorite photos even today, and that probably won’t change until I make it Heaven and see some really incredible things.

Once back in America, and in my current hometown of Jacksonville, FL, I used some of my money saved from the deployment to buy my first real camera: A Nikon D80 DSLR, and since then I’ve had my nose buried and my eyes glued to anything photography.  I love it and I’ll probably pursue it until they make cool little cameras that basically just print out what our mind is thinking about.  Either that or until I die.  I’m hoping for the former.

Self portrait attempt in a cab in Mexico

I’ll say upfront: I’m a God-fearing, saved by grace Christian and I love my God and Christ.  I have a beautiful wife, Sarah, who’s one of the funnest and sweetest people I’ve ever met and thankfully we’re stuck together for the rest of our lives.

My specialty is portrait and family photography.  I dabble in other areas, some better than others, but portrait and family photography is really where I excel.  I really enjoy applying some creativity to try and create photographs, and that’s the best areas to do it.

I’m not afraid to admit that I still have a lot to learn about photography, but even the best will say the same thing.  We all need to constantly push ourselves to be better, and hopefully you’ll see me doing that through my work. 

If you want to keep up with what I’m doing, check out my One Bright Spot blog.  It gets updated pretty frequently, and if I’m not doing a 365 photo project, I’ll be working on an article or writeup on some piece of photography gear or techinque, something new or something newly learned.  Anything is fair game.  We’ve talked about the difference between umbrellas and softboxes to the way cell phone cameras have evolved and everything in between.  Check it out and learn with me if you’ve got the time.