"For me, the camera is a tool that gives access to the holder; it's a secret key that brings you into back rooms, beyond barriers, and up close and personal to the action. I adore it for that reason. A photographer is allowed to peek behind the curtain and share what really happens with the rest of the world.
As a teen in the north suburbs of Chicago, I transferred high schools. On a suggestion of my father, I enrolled in a summer photography course as a way to make a few new friends and get to know the campus.
So I made friends, learned the campus, joined the newspaper as a staff photographer, became the photo editor, was ranked All State in photography (Yes, that's a thing. No, I did not purchase a letterman jacket.). 
It would be wrong to say that from there the rest was history, though.
In truth, I never thought twice about photography as a profession, let alone a sustainable one. The camera, to me, was always another tool of expression amongst the guitar, the pen, the videocamera, or the voice. I studied philosophy and psychology in college, graduated and taught high school, completed a M.Ed. and saw myself returning for a Ph.D.
Yet somehow, today I find myself running an expanding business in New Orleans (I'l save you the explanation of how I wound up in the southern swamps from Chicago) based on the camera as a mode of support and expression training high school students in photography and booking paying gigs via a web interface.
The camera is and will continue to be my access point. A way to crack open the mysteries of a city and share them with friends, flung across the country and world alike.
New Orleans holds tight to her secret mysteries and joys, but with a camera in hand I feel I may build her trust and begin to pull back the curtain to share her true smile with the world."
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