About the Photographer
Hello there! Thanks for stopping in to read the first of many writings I'll be doing! I would like to start by introducing myself and then I'll move on to what I plan to accomplish with my writings.
I currently live in the Seattle area with my beautiful wife and 2 kids. I was born in Fresno, California and lived there, as well as just outside the city in the foothills near Yosemite NP until my 6th grade year. The parts of my childhood that I remember most are from when I lived in the foothills East of Fresno. We lived in a small community called Yosemite lakes park. My dad was a contractor and had built my family a home on the side of a steep hill on 6.5 acres of beautiful California foothill grounds. The terrain was steep with a seasonal creek running through it. It smelled strongly of pine and I spent the couple years we lived there roaming around and exploring the full 6.5 acres. I think this is where my love for the outdoors and exploring really got a strong foot hold on my character.
In the middle of 6th grade my life was abruptly changed when I was informed we would be moving to the distant land of Seattle, WA! HA! At the time I knew very little about Washington, besides hearing about how it rained every day!! During my first 6 years living in Seattle, I did very little exploring. Most of those years were consumed with basketball, friends and girls. Typical boy right, ha!
After high school I went to work for my dad building large, million dollar homes mostly in the Bellevue area. A year after graduating, my family decided to move to Dallas, TX to try our hand at building custom homes out there. But we all found rather quickly that Texas wasn't for us. I was fortunate enough to meet my wife during that time there though. After a short two years there we came back to Seattle, which I had a whole new appreciation for!
Often we don't know how much we love something until it's taken from us. This is how it was for me. I didn't realize how much I loved Seattle and the mountains around it until not having it in Texas. After moving back, I went ape crazy on the mountains, hiking as much as I could! I met a good friend Nick, who also was along a similar path and who's love for exploring in the mountains equaled mine. We quickly became great friends and learned (often through trial and error) our way around the mountains and how this whole hiking, backpacking and mountaineering stuff worked. This is where my goals in my writings here come in. I made many errors for those first few years basically just trying to figure it out. With the increased amount of exposure the mountains are seeing now with social media, there is also the increase of people making many of the same mistakes I made. I hope to help people avoid these mistakes both for their own benefit and for the environment. The problem with the mistakes to nature is that many of them can be irreversible and will forever damage or alter the landscape.
So my plan continuing with these writings is to share what knowledge I have gained over the years as well as knowledge from others that are more experienced than me. My purpose is not to shame anyone, but to inform and educate on proper back country etiquette. I will also be writing about my experiences in the back country as well as how photography fits into all this and will share tips along the way, and will hopefully in turn help you to become a more skilled outdoors men and photographer! Through sharing collective wisdom and having open discussions, I hope to help spread the word on how to be good stewards of the land, and how to fully and safely enjoy exploring. That way it is not here for just us to enjoy, but for future generations! As a native american proverb says " we do not inherit the land from our ancestors; but borrow it from our children."
