ABOUT ME

“Your homework assignment is to write a paper… or if you prefer, you can shoot a movie instead.”  That was all I needed to hear.  To my surprise, I was the only one in my 7th grade Spanish class who took the movie option.  After my 15 minutes of Jr. high celebrity status wore off, I couldn’t wait to shoot more short films with my friends (mostly to incorporate cheesy special effects such as exploding ketchup packets). 

The moment I was old enough, I started working on ‘real’ movie and television sets… first as an intern and PA, then eventually as a grip, AC, and camera operator.  It was so much harder than I ever imagined, but I was totally hooked.  I knew this is what I wanted to do.

After undergraduate film school at GSU, I was accepted into the American Film Institute’s advanced film and television studies program in Los Angeles, where I was taught cinematography by icons such as Laslo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond.  In 2000, I received an MFA in Cinematography from AFI and was fortunate enough to go straight into the industry as a camera operator and DP.

Over the last twenty something years, I’ve been blessed to shoot just about every kind of project imaginable: feature films, reality TV shows, documentaries, music videos, network television shows, and commercials.  Whether riding a dolly on a commercial project with a giant crew, or hanging off the side of a rock face on Yosemite’s El Cap with just a camera and a can of Spaghettios,  I try to approach each project with the same goal:  keep a positive attitude, maximize the resources available, and use images to tell the best story possible.  And of course, to have fun.