the rows and rows of family photo albums in our living room attest to my earliest interactions with photography, the obliging object of my father's snapshots. by age ten, i was playing with my dad's manual SLR. when i showed up at my week-long camp having been entrusted with the bigger-than-my-head camera, i got noticed. while standing in line at the cafeteria one day, someone said that surely, i was a serious photographer. of course, i was far from it; but the seed had been planted.

since then, my love for photography has developed through the darkroom, the point-and-shoot digital camera that rarely left my side, and the now-annual duke photo show that i founded. i even took a summer's worth of waitressing wages and purchased my own digital SLR, cementing an investment in something that has gradually grown from a simple hobby to an inextricable part of my life.

to me, photography is a mode of exploration, a means of expression, and a beautiful way of experiencing the world.
i hope to share that with you.