I am the child of missionaries, born in Brazil, a graduate of Asbury. I grew up in the church and missions community surrounded by Third Culture Kids (TCK’s). Early on I decided I wanted to be a citizen of the world, one place just feels small to me. Traveling with my parents as a kid I had the opportunity to see much of the country. My closest friends were scattered around the globe, Africa, Middle east, and Asia. I wanted so badly to be out there with them. In high school I got to see Thailand and Brazil, each for a month. On those trips I was handed a camera…
As much as I feel it should have been obvious I didn’t Immediately gravitate to photography, I tried traditional art first. I spent a solid 6 months almost producing a finished artwork every day. Some good, some not, but all of them done. I felt so strongly that everything I made had to mean something, and not saying something with what I made was a waste of time. Ultimately I burned out but that lead me back towards photography. A every photo tells a story, of varying depths grant it, but you cant capture a moment in time without also alluding to what took place immediately before and immediately after. the difference between a good photo and a great photo is often not in what’s taking place in the photo itself. but what we infer from it. And so off I went to University… For audio production.
Audio production didn’t work out, not because I didn’t like it, but it felt like a cop out to me. Audio is extremely important, but without video its less impactful. So off I went to another school called Asbury. Asbury has a great program thats half film and half broadcast. I dedicated those 2 years entirely to Light. I focused almost exclusively on Light. At the beginning I was helping out in the theater, and then I was “Gaffing” projects, then I taught myself how to run the light systems that our events team were tasked with using for various events. and by the end I was the first team lead we’d had in that field writing training for the next group of students. At the same time, due to the pandemic, myself and a few others were creating content for different departments in preparation for students to be doing orientation largely online.
Once I graduated and aged out of student work though, I ended up returning home to find a job. media jobs had become scarce so I worked as a photographer for Lifetouch at a J.C.Penny Portrait Studio. Retail photography isn’t for me, but that job forced me to work on all the things that I was bad at. and got me much more precise on my trigger because I couldn’t burst fire. After that, I was a camera op at a horse race track. There I learned more broadcast skills and camera operation and maintenance. And from there I went freelance. I worked 2 Olympics, countless commercials, a feature film, a few short films, and some photo shoots. I worked in most of the major departments (at the lower levels) and learned alot of skills and tricks from just being around all these people.
If you told me a couple years ago I’d be going into a nonprofit and trying to raise support I would not have believed you. But looking back I feel uniquely placed here. But as with many of us men in this world, it started with a girl named Sarah. She’s in another org and so I went to that organization’s recruiting event. ultimately I didn’t really align with their job description or their goal of Bible translation as much. Not that that’s a bad goal but I’m much more passionate about helping people thrive. And that’s when I crossed paths with ILAD. Because ILAD isn’t a Christian organization, its goals of holistic development are much more exciting to me. I also love that it’s a small team who are all cool like-minded people working together to change the world. I feel like I belong.
Because of donor designations I am more than happy to walk you through the process