Hi, I'm Joe Sparks, a 39 (wait... make that 41) year old 16 year old.... I like taking photographs of things that a lot of people shake their heads at; industrial decay, run down places, things in the dark, etc. etc. ( a lot of the shots I post on Flickr don't really represent my larger body of work)

When it comes to photography, I'm not a purist... far from it. I shoot photos in odd ways and have been told many times by "professionals" that I am doing it all wrong. I bought my first camera, a Nikon D50, in 2006. Photography is an art to me and I do whatever I need to do to make the photos look to me like the way I felt when I shot them. I feel at peace when I'm holding a camera...

I enjoy artists like Edvard Munch, Caleb Kuhl, Jill Greenberg, Dave Hill, Francis Bacon, Trey Ratcliff and Dennis Hopper, and the outdoors and calm activities like writing, downhill skiing, mountain bike riding, and jumping out of planes...

Life is good!