My life has taken me many places. Bay Area native and current resident. I was born in Oakland, lived in nearby Richmond, then moved upstate to Oroville. I enlisted in the Army in 1997, undergoing basic training and AIT in Fort Jackson, SC, before moving on to my permanent duty station at Fort Lewis, WA. After getting out in 2001, I went back to Oroville, and later, back to the Bay Area - first, to San Francisco, then back across the Bay to El Cerrito.

I've been photographing sports since 1993, and more so on a regular basis since 2001. I took up urban photography on a more creative and photo-journalistic level in 2006.

My first camera was a Konica 110, which I received for my seventh birthday in 1985. I started shooting with 35 mm in the late '90s and purchased my first digital camera in 2006. I bought a Sony a200 in May 2008; a couple years later it died from interior water damage, so I upgraded to the Sony a35.

While in the Army, I served as the unit stringer, taking a simple point-and-shoot 35mm film camera to field exercises and promotion ceremonies with me.

I graduated from San Francisco State University in January 2010, at the ripe old age of 32. I earned a BA in Urban Studies and Planning, while covering the SFSU sports scene, specializing in baseball, softball and basketball. I got my Master of Urban Affairs degree from the University of San Francisco in 2017.