I served in the United States Marine Corps from 1993 - 2003, yes that makes me an old fart, now. I only share war stories with other veterans, and that requires a camp fire & a bottle of good whiskey. With that said, I’ll skip ahead to the photography…

After the Marine Corps put me out to pasture, I had to figure out what I wanted to be. There isn’t much call for infantrymen in the private sector. I went to work for an armored truck company servicing automated teller machines and guarding other people’s money. It was a decent gig. The pay was commensurate with the work, but it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I needed purpose. So, I was off to college. I thought I’d try my hand at being a teacher, after all, I spent a significant portion of my Marine Corps career as an instructor of one type or another (hand to hand combat, Military Operations in Urban Terrain, Primary Marksmanship. Teaching kids should be easy peasy.

pffft! During my first semester, they stuck me in the kindergarten classroom of a Catholic school. All I needed was 3 days to realize that I was not going to be a school teacher, because while I love children, I do not love other people’s children, certainly not 30 at a time.

During the summer semester, I had an elective to use, and the woman I was dating at the time was a hobbyist photographer, and the college was offering an intro to photography class (B&W Film). I figured that would just be a fun thing for my girlfriend and I to do on Tuesday nights through the summer. I fell immediately in love with photography. There is as much math and science in photography as there is artistic creativity, doubly so with film photography and splashing about in the darkroom. I changed majors immediately...I broke up with the girl, but I kept photography. That was the summer of 2006. Through college, most of my work was portraits; fine art nudes, and some self portraits. I spent a lot of time in the studio and got to know studio lighting very well, and I developed a distinct style for high contrast dramatic lighting.

Looking back on those years, I’m honestly surprised I survived them (even if you disregard the 2 suicide attempts). I was completely self isolated. If I wasn’t in class or working on an assignment, I had zero human interaction. I could literally go days without saying a word out loud. The introvert within me just smiled as I typed those words.

In December of 2009, I relocated back to my hometown of Alanson and opened a portrait studio. 2010 was actually a pretty good year. It was the honeymoon phase; “Hometown boy returns after more than 16 years to open business.” My initial clients were folks with whom I went to high school, and childhood friends who now had families. That grew my business pretty quickly and I stayed busy. The downside is that I was no longer doing the work I wanted to do. Much of what I was doing began to feel like a production line and the photos started to all look alike. My creative outlet…my pressure release valve, was closed.

My tendency for self isolation worsened. If I didn’t have a client, I didn’t leave the house. I spent less and less time working on the business side of the business. If you don’t pursue clients, eventually you won’t have clients. I began having a hard time connecting to those clients that I did find their way to me. Eventually, the business had dried up which was just fine by me because I’d rather be home alone where I didn’t have to worry about being seen or judged when I would randomly burst into tears, or rage. by February of 2012, I was no longer a portrait photographer, and my camera went into storage.

When an artist stops creating, it is as though he stopped breathing, and the soul begins to die.

It would be 4 more years and one more suicide attempt before I would be diagnosed with PTSD, and 2 more years still before I would get help with it.

In 2018 I checked into a residential PTSD recovery program at the Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Battle Creek, Michigan (which is the same town in which I studied photography - that’s not irony, its just a coincidence). It was probably the best decision I’ve made in my post Marine Corps life. I’m not cured. I’ll never be normal, and while I still have my triggers, I am better equipped to recognize them and deal with them. That summer, my camera began to make a more regular appearance. Nothing serious, but every couple weeks, I would pull it out and make strides to “get back into it.” I wouldn’t “get back into it” until the summer of 2023 after a major shake up in my personal life made me realize I was relying too heavily on external sources for my mental well being and not enough on myself. It was then that the camera came out for good and became an extension of my hand.

But no portrait studio this time around. My predilection for isolation is still very much a part of me. These days, I call it “Solitude,” and I use it to be productive rather than hide from the world.

But don’t think that this is a pity party. I’m in pretty good shape these days. I’m happily married with 4 children, 3 at home, 1 grown. I have a pretty solid support structure in addition to my camera and tripod.