Hi! I'm an American with Filipino roots born and raised in the Chicago suburbs. I love the United States not because she is perfect, but because to better one's country, I believe you must first love it even with all its flaws. With every fiber of my being, I hate the evils that too many of our leaders have promulgated in nearly every corner of the globe. I am aware of very evil things done by our country because of the corruption of virtually all our leaders. To love one's country is not to only celebrate its accomplishments, but to equally so (and probably more so) to recognize, condemn, and call out her sins. The military-industrial complex and the thirst for endless war that controls our leaders must be exterminated. I believe most Americans are peace-loving, however our leaders are bought and paid for by special interests bent on dragging the country into countless and never-ending wars out of evil desires based in greed and domination.

I started taking photos because I found the idea of being able to capture a moment in time fascinating from an early age. I strongly believe in freedom of speech which includes the right to take photos in public spaces as protected by the First Amendment. If you look through my photostream, you may notice an evolution in my abilities (and hopefully for the better).

Flickr is awesome because of the window it is to the people of the world and to art! I believe that Flickr's greatest feature is the "Faves" page on each of our profiles. It has been and continues to be an awesome jumping board to discovering others with similar interests and amazing works of art. As I have been blown away by what I've seen here, I hope to someday be able to contribute something worthy of being called art. Largely because of what I have admired from your contributions, I have learned to deeply value freedom of expression.

I hate the divisiveness of so-called wokeness and identity politics, but love the diversity of humanity in my country and around the world. I don't believe in one political party over another. There are intelligent people to be found all across the political spectrum and everywhere in between. I don't believe one's beliefs have to be completely rooted and in line with all the apparent tenets of one political party. I believe that there are good and bad ideas in any given worldview and the challenge is to find out which of those ideas best address the realities of our world and help to make it a better place. Our life experiences are far too nuanced and varied to be represented by any one ideological camp.

Putting people into political and social boxes and making assumptions about their whole individuality based on those boxes is probably one of the worse things proliferating at the moment. I am beginning to realize how extremely destructive and harmful identity politics is to any society. I believe what is common among our life experiences is greater than what divides us. However, the popular media outlets and the proliferation of extreme views on social media often lead us to think otherwise.

IMAGE USAGE: Please credit "risingthermals". Many of my images are already available for non-commercial use, but for all other uses or questions about images that are copyrighted, feel free to send a message through FlickrMail.

I follow 3,000+ accounts, but I don't use bots to follow photographers or fave images. If I follow you, it's because I've found something I really appreciate in your photostream! No return follow is expected (unless you truly like my work of course). Everyday I look forward to catching up with my Flickr feed! Some might think it's impossible to keep up, but because most of us don't upload images everyday, it's doable!

I very rarely block people because I recognize all of us dig different things -- who am I to judge what you're into as long as it isn't hurting anybody? I won't block you for faving too many of my images, for not commenting, or some other silliness!