About

…who I am

I am a photographer first, dancer second, and a choreographer third. Well, perhaps I’m a dancer first, a choreographer second, and a dancer last… actually, truth be told it doesn’t particularly matter. Suffice to say, I wear a lot of hats (most of them silly).

I’ve trained mostly within the ballet idiom with Houston Ballet Academy and thus the Houston Ballet was my primary exposure to the form. I eventually traveled to Salt Lake City where I attended the University of Utah and eventually came to perform with Repertory Dance Theatre as a full-time professional dancer. Years later the winds called me to Portland, Oregon where I now keep four walls and a roof, a desk, and a lot of photography equipment for capturing dance.

I also take darling self portraits and pass them along on serious artist’s statements.

…what I do

I’ve never been merely content to simply pose a dancer and leave things be. A pose is static and dance is anything but. Dance is at its core an expression of time, space, and energy. Still-photography takes away the element of time which makes a dancer, despite their specific intent, look inert. My goal within every single frame is to create movement that forces the photograph to have the illusion of a before and an after in effect giving the still frame life and movement.

While the implication of movement is a singular goal, my other fascination lies in moving the medium of dance photography beyond the cliché and into a place where the dance exists for itself. The four walls of a still photograph are meant to be designed with the deft hand of a painter and so I do with the brushstrokes of a choreographer, bending the aesthetics of ballet to suit my subjects.

The moments I create last less than the blink of an eye but it’s all I need.

…who I have worked for
Ballet West
BodyVox
ChoreoTechnology
The Daily Utah Chronicle (former staff photographer)
Discount Dance Supply
Getty Images
Northwest Dance Project
Odyssey Dance Theatre
RawMoves Dance
Repertory Dance Theatre
Revolution Design House
Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company
Salt Lake City Ballet
The Salt Lake Tribune
Skinner-Kirk
UCLA Bruins
University of Utah Department of Ballet
University of Utah Department of Modern Dance