“I saw an article about you in The Bold Italic..about ‘The Identity Project’. Great article.”

“Aw thanks.

"What was your inspiration for ‘The Identity Project’?”

“I built a photography business and I had to figure out who I was as a photographer. My business coach really pushed me to explore that this year. That was the catalyst for how the project got started. I came home from that meeting with my business coach and had my wife take that photo of me that launched the project. I love the gay community and I don’t see them as much I would like in my professional work, so I wanted to find a way to be more connected with them. I had a job at Frameline, San Francisco’s LGBT film festival, and I really saw the power of seeing images of yourself reflected back to you and ‘I thought I could do that’.”

“I’ve been following the project, I know it’s very new, but already I feel like I’ve seen stylistic evolution.”

“Totally. It’s a studio bootcamp for me. I taught myself studio last year and every photo is different just like every person is different. I can use the same formula to edit them but they all carry a different energy.”

“You were saying you taught yourself, I taught myself too, and I think that’s really cool because you end up having a truly unique style.”

“It’s true, I’ve been doing the professional thing for awhile and now I’m bridging the gap between that and fine art photography. A lot of people have gone to art school and are professionally trained, and I don’t know, I’m kind of a rule breaker, I just wanna break all that down. You don’t need a $5,000 studio kit to do good photography. You can have a 1 light and a white background and make something beautiful. I’m very much a DIY kind of person.”

“Where do you get the motivation to learn and improve? Is that just your personality?”

“Oh yeah, definitely type A, and I’m a double Aquarius…always learning new things, you master one thing, and then it’s like…’what’s next’?”