About
The first camera I remember having was a kids camera called the "Tomato" camera. I was ten when I saw it at a K-Mart in Atlanta, Georgia. It was bright red and fit comfortably in my small ten year old hands and more importantly, I remember that it looked really cool. My Dad had bought it for me and said in his thick German accent, "Now girl be carevuul not tu looze ze Tomato." I would sit on my bed with my Mom's National Geographic magazines and frame up my favorite photos in the small square viewfinder of "ze Tomato." Through this process, I experienced becoming a part of the world, a world that was bigger than my own.
I left Georgia to attend college at NYU and embarked on a journey that led to working as an assistant camera person on film and television sets. This developed my interests in both cinematography and photography. Instead of choosing between the two, I learned the value in both and that one continually informs the other. I received a rich visual and technical education from cinematographers, gaffers, grips, and set designers that had learned their craft from generations of men and women that came before them. They brought me into their world of cameras, lenses, lights, and color, and challenged me to learn.
Now it is the world that holds secrets and the camera that helps me reveal them to myself, and hopefully others. I have learned to just open my eyes to the ways bricks change their color in the city at sunrise. To watch waves, trees and windows catch sunrays, and to wait for the magic of the light that lingers long after the sun sets. Creating an idea in my mind and seeing it surface through the viewfinder is what originally sparked my interest in photography and continues to drive my work today.