At the beginning of my junior year at Vanderbilt University, I borrowed my parents’ Minolta SR-T 201 to take along on a year-abroad exchange program at the University of Regensburg in Germany. That camera, a dormitory darkroom and a year spent in a country still recovering from one war and divided by another, combined to make an encouraging environment for a novice photographer.
Two years later, two Americans I had befriended in Regensburg invited me along on an adventure, which became an opportunity to tell an engaging story with my camera. We built a raft in a Kansas City public park from assorted lumber and 24 55-gallon oil drums, and floated 1,500 miles down the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans.
Upon my return to Nashville, I went to work at a custom black and white photo lab owned by Jimmy Ellis, who had recently retired from his position as a photojournalist for the Nashville Tennessean.
More recently, I have traveled to places like the Galápagos Islands in search of subjects more exotic than the ones I am used to shooting in and around Nashville. I have discovered that an experienced photographer does not need to fly around the world to find the truly exotic.