Do you like stories? Do you find it interesting to follow the lives of people (these days on Social Media) or talk about the cool things you saw someone do over the weekend? What about you? What is it you do for fun, hobby or recreation when you have time? Or is your job so amazing because you have figured out how to turn your way to make a living into a lifestyle?
Whether it is a job or lifestyle or both, there are alot of cool people doing cool things. And the only thing cooler than that is getting to spend an hour or so with these people, sharing their excitement and energy for those cool things.
For the last 20 years I have had the privilege of photographing hundreds of athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and just about anyone who was focused on doing something just a little more extraordinary. Magazine assignments that gave me only 15 minutes to capture a profile of someone who has changed an industry, commercial marketing projects that showed me how teams work, or meeting and working with some of the heroes I had in my youth because I am now hired to cover them for a private event.
People are the reason I am still passionate about photography. Sure I can reverse engineer an amazing landscape shot and recreate it. I love panoramic photography and architectural work and even spent a few years doing astrophotography. But getting to meet with someone who is being featured somewhere for their achievements, their interests or their passions, and having to draw those things out of them for a photo? It’s like speed dating with someone who woke up this morning with the answer to the meaning of their life. I just never get tired of it.
When I started in the mid-2000’s I was introverted and very nervous around people I did not know. Never would I have guessed that someday I would live for the challenge that is (at times) having only minutes to understand and reveal another’s personality enough to present that through a single, telling photograph. How cool is it that I get to spend time with and photograph people who think they have the best lifestyle of job in the world?
