My Mission

My ultimate mission is to live a very balanced life – ensuring that I have time for family and friends, enjoying the work that I do to bring a paycheck home, haveing the time to dedicate to giving back to both local and global causes, all while still carving out time to take care of myself.

There was a time in my life that I would have said, "I want to be the next Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams or Annie Leibovitz," with regard to still photography, or "the next Ken Burns," on the documentary side.  However, my life has taken me on a completely different path than that I dreamed up, long ago.  I have worked long hours, traveled many miles, slept in hotel after hotel, missed many events with family and friends, and became incredibly stressed out doing a job that I wasn't 100% passionate about.  It has come time to redirect my energy and focus on the elements of my career that I truly enjoy doing, within a business model where I control the hours, the travel, and the life-work balance that I now refuse to compromise.  

I do still aspire to be a skilled photographer/videographer, whose images wake people up from their daily grind long enough to take notice of something outside of their own world, but I don't have to be "the best" at it.  Whether it's a photograph of an endangered animal, a natural habitat or resource facing destruction, a beautiful cultural practice, an arresting image of something ordinarily mundane, or a person who should be recognized for what they have accomplished or the issues that they face, I would like to produce images that shake people from their contained spaces and show them the big world outside.  I have tried throughout my life to see the beauty in everything around me.  I want to impart that moment to others, when you stop dead in your tracks and realize, "Wow, I need to get involved with that cause," or "I should really live more (enjoy the beauty around me, spend more time with my kids, immerse myself in another culture), and work less."  

There are several issues currently rolling through my mind that will be first out of the gate, when I am able to devote the time to documentary work: 

1. The issue of women’s body image, stemming from the fixation of the media and advertising world on the “perfect” form, is something that I’d like to help draw attention to in some way.  There have been several docs out that cover this topic, but I believe it is still a problem.  I thought that the Dove campaign that helped to uncover the manufacturing of beauty and, in turn celebrating “real women” was brilliant.  I would love to do something along the same lines, but in a long-form documentary format.  

2. Another issue that I feel should receive more attention is the incredible number of people in the U.S. living under the poverty line.  90% IPS schools in the city of Indianapolis provide free or reduced lunch to their students.  This is due to the fact that the majority of these students are living below the government’s national poverty level ($22,050 for a family of four).   Barbara Erinriech’s book Nickel and Dimed was an incredible account of how she struggled, and ultimately failed to make ends meet in the blue-collar labor market.  With the recession weighing heavy on the whole country, I would love to produce a documentary that shows not only those in the U.S. who have been living in extreme poverty for their entire lives, but those white-collar workers who are now finding themselves on the streets, due to the loss of their job, bankruptcy from healthcare costs, benefit cuts, the home loan crisis, etc.  I want our citizens to see and understand that poverty isn’t just a problem in other places around the globe, but is something that must be solved in our own backyard. 

3. The diabetes epidemic in the U.S.  My father recently passed away from his 40-year battle with this horrible disease.  My brother ran four marathons this year, to raise money for the Chicago Diabetes Project.  I filmed several of these races, with the hopes of putting together a documentary about the disease and current research findings, wrapped in my father's personal story. 

4. The natural wonders around the world being devastated by the impact of preventable acts by human kind. 

However, since these types of undertakings require both time and money, with no guaranteed pay-back, I am moving toward a career path which places me solidly into the field of integrated media, where I can build and utilize my skills to provide paying clients with needed multimedia solutions, while carving out time to work on the projects that move me.  I am also interested in teaching media studies, digital imagery, video production, and media literacy at the collegiate level.     

I feel as if there is still so much to learn - so much new technology on which to get a good grasp.  But, I have already learned a great deal, thus far.  I’m looking forward to expanding my skill set and working toward completing my mission – a well balanced life, with an enjoyable and fulfilling job that affords me the opportunity to be my own boss and bring home a solid paycheck, and the free time to dedicate to the other important projects that I would like to convey through still and moving images, as well as the other high-priority elements of my personal life.  It's no longer about long work hours and the struggle to be "the best," it's more about enjoying the work that I do (both paid and unpaid) and ensuring that my personal life doesn't suffer for it.