One could say I had an ideal childhood. My family had horses and when I wasn't in school, or playing in the street (waiting for dad to come home from work), we were at the stable tending to the horses.

There were many perks to growing up with horses, two of the most memorable ones (for me) would be Friday night team roping and the gymkhana's.

The amount of kids and adults that gathered at these events made for a ton of fun with my horse and friends. This is where the first camera comes into the picture. Mom had a little Kodak Instamatic - can't tell you what film... I remember taking pictures with it all the time though. I would take pictures of my sister barrel-racing or pole-bending and pictures of my brother calf-roping and these shots would all come out great (at least for an instamatic camera).

Fast-forward a couple decades (or more) and it turns out that my career has gravitated toward graphics. For over 20 years I've worked at a local paper either setting ads, designing covers, developing websites, assisting clients with color images or calibrating color. The knowledge of color and light has always been there, but only the tip of the iceberg.

Several years ago, I decided I wasn't getting more time to do what I love; quite the contrary, in fact. So I stepped back in time - back to a time when I used to look through a viewfinder, and another world began to unfurl.

Photography fills my heart - I see places I've never seen. I see things in a different light - literally, and I'm still and always will be learning and growing in this skill, this passion. I enjoy it and I enjoy the people I've met as a result.