Who I am and my journey into photography
For as long as I can remember, photography has been a part of my family. Not professionally, but the camera was always there. My father, like his father before him, always had his camera ready for family vacations. It wasn’t until I graduated high school that I started to catch the photography bug. I used my father’s Pentax camera at first but I quickly wanted my own. I bought a Minolta Maxxum 3000i from Best Buy and off I went. My ‘baby’ was taken with me on trips, parties, and of course, hockey games. Many rolls of film were shot and developed in that decade. Then in 2002 I booked a trip for Japan. I calculated that I would need to bring way too many rolls of film for my 16 day trip. So I took the plunge into the digital age. I went with a Minolta Dimage 7 for the low price of $1,000 and a 1 GB IBM Microdrive for $300. My return on investment was quickly realized during that trip. I took 3,504 pictures in 16 days. This is equivalent to 140 rolls of 24 exposure film. At that time, Kodak Max film ran about $4 a roll and double 4×6 prints was another $6. It was later in 2007 when I finally got serious with my hobby. I purchased my first real DSLR, a Canon 40D. It was at this point that I stepped up my game and went professional. I obtained credentials with the Philadelphia Phantoms for the 2007-08 season. Then I transitioned to the Philadelphia Flyers on Black Friday in 2009. I expanded into mud runs, road races, bike races, and obstacle course races. I have covered a variety of events such Spartan, Tough Mudder, Warrior Dash, Savage Race, Color Run, Atlantic City Marathon races, and many more. My photos have graced the pages of Sports Illustrated and SI.com along with numerous news and blogging sites around the world. Being able to cover the 2012 Winter Classic in Philadelphia is one of the favorite moments to come from photography.
