The crew at #besomebody asked me to share my story once. I was hesitant at first, especially since they wanted the “raw, unedited” version of my life. Eventually I gave in and shared my life that is a “Riot Of Colour In A Grey World.”
This in itself is a loaded question. But simply stated; I’m a 2nd generation photographer who's been doing his best to keep not just the "dream" alive as a professional photographer, but be an inspiration for others.
But I want to share with you that while there were people in my life who have contributed to it, taken away from it and many who are currently in my life blessing it in more ways than I can count, my life is a sine wave of a creative journey that I hope will be of inspiration for others to keep tilting.
Let me explain…
I’m 7 years old sitting on the floor of my bedroom, making a model car and I ask my mum if what is on my tombstone will be important to people so they know what my life stood for and the man I was. Startled, she told me yes, it would be a brief description of what my legacy was and the impact & change I made on the planet. Then she reminded me how young I was and to not worry about it because I had an entire life ahead of me to be concerned about it.
But the thought never left my mind. As far back as I can remember, I always (yes, I’m using the definite word) have been concerned about my legacy, the impact I’ll have in the world and the positive change I could be. In my heart I’ve always known I’m here to be a light in the world that could do something amazing and do something huge. What it was, I wasn’t sure when I was a kid, but as an adult this is something that more & more no longer tugs at my heart and mind, but pulls on it like a Space X rocket taking off.
Fast forward from being a kid in Chicago to it being 3rd of June 1983 in a small home outside of Kansas City, Missouri, I pick up my mother’s book on photography by Kodak from the bookshelf in the dining room. The moment I turned the first page - my world of family, school, sports, theatre, and working went from “only” that - to knowing I could change the world.
I always loved art, music, theatre, science, and math and in a way - all of those topics collided like a meteor to a planet in my creative mind with how I see and perceived the world. But when I learned how all those items can be implemented into a photograph, and that one photograph can bring a grown man to his knees and weep, a child laugh and a mother mourn - sparked something in me that I never knew existed.
At the speed of thought my entire world changed and I haven’t looked back since. From sports, to theater, business & education and everything else I’ve done in life have been to help me propel my ability to be a better photographer, a better filmmaker, a better educator and a better philanthropist.
I also began to study the legends in photography too. From Annie Leibovitz, to Herb Ritts, David LaChapelle, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Richard Avedon, Alfred Stieglitz, Helmut Newton, Ellon von Unwerth, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and Karl Lagerfeld. In my free time, I would go to the book stores, grab a stack of magazines about 1/2 meter tall, find a desk and with a 2 liter of Pepsi, begin to pour over all the work.
Reviewing the other work also required me to keep in the front of my mind the simplest basics of photography my mother instilled in me. Especially light. To pour over a photograph in a way that I could determine where the light source was, how it was captured, the geometry of the photograph and even more than all of the primary aspects of the photo; to see the story in the photograph. A photograph without a story is nothing more than a dull shade of grey for creativity.
Immediately after the graduation ceremony from high school, I walked the hallway of my school for the last time; realizing and thinking my life going forward will never be the same. Never be held back like a horse with a bit in its mouth, held back from charging forward. It was then that I realized my life’s results were 100% on my shoulders.
One of the biggest problems I anticipated, was when I threw away being Valedictorian of my school because I was ripped out of my first high school where another student and I were tied for graduating top of my class, and brought to a school that I loathed and even worse was behind a year in curricular studies. Looking back on it now, I see it as a totally stupid way of rebelling as a kid. It’s like taking poison, expecting someone else to get sick.
There was also the sad fact of knowing if I applied to college, the first year of tuition I was promised growing up was no longer saved for me.
Life was on me. Nobody else. Me and me alone. I sat on a park bench at a lake, thinking how I could employ the talents I had and take the creative industry by storm. I charted out my path and decided to go for it. The crazier the dream, the crazier the idea, the more outlandish the goal, the more I worked towards it.
My mentors in life were photographers I hadn’t met, musicians I dreamt of working with and music I listened to from Duran Duran - keeping the dream alive.
Having done theatre in school, I wanted to know more about how to handle being in front of a crowd and started to MC events like the 18th & Vine Heritage Jazz Festival in Kansas City, Missouri. I also started doing standup at Stanford & Son’s Comedy House in Westport, next to The Plaza in Kansas City. Learning how to work a crowd meant I would learn more about human behavior - which is a must as a professional photographer & filmmaker.
Keeping the creative train going full steam ahead, I wanted to learn how to dance, especially since I had a huge love of music. What a better way to do it but to go to nightclubs around the city, eventually to discover Eyes in downtown Kansas City. Eyes was exactly what I was looking for in a club with some of the best sound & lighting in the industry available for me to enjoy. Eventually with all the practice I had on the floor, my street dancing became good enough to do shows at the club.
By then I was dancing in clubs and malls around Kansas City and its suburbs. But again, that didn’t stop the creative train picking up speed and doing more. I had been playing drums recreationally but wanted to do more with that and with a friend of mine from school - we started a dance rock band and started performing around Kansas City for small shows, bars and even had a show titled: “A Concert In The Park” on a roof-top park of a building in downtown.
By now, I was dancing, playing drums and capturing photos, but it was when a really odd moment in time happened to me that added even more to my creative world.
I was in a restaurant in Westport and a woman asked me if I ever modeled before. Like a scene out of a movie, I thought she was asking someone behind or beside me and it was when I looked behind me that she stopped me and said: “No - you. Have you ever modeled before?” I told her no and she gave me her business card and said to call her immediately because she could get me work - which she definitely did. I was doing small runway shows, photo shoots for ads and even a couple appearances in clubs.
The best part about this experience was it gave me an opportunity to learn more about “what not to do” as a photographer. From talking to the models, to timing of the shoots, locations and even how to maintain a location for a shoot, I learned a TON during this journey and it helped me immensely grow as a photographer more than as a model.
Abruptly my short-lived career as a professional model ended when my agent got married and moved to Costa Rica. Yay for her, but bummer for the rest of us on her roster. But that was cool because the band was leaving Kansas City and heading to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Several of us moved into a house on Hopeful Way, near the Citadel Mall and the band began to do full time, closed session practices. Things began to come together pretty well and even our friend: Eddie Griffin worked with us, creating some really amazing music and shows.
What was crazy is I felt a calling to go back to my home city of Chicago and eventually needed to leave the band, pack my drums, camera equipment and head to Chicago to further my music, dancing and modeling. Being back in my home city, I found myself modeling again for a small agent in downtown, started doing a couple small dance performances at clubs and playing the drums for a band called: “Male on Sunday.” The guys in the band were totally awesome to work with and what made it even more interesting was they looked like John Taylor and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. Even when I brought the guys over to my mum’s home for a family BBQ, my brother’s Jason & Tony flipped out and thought I brought over Duran Duran. Unfortunately at that time - I hadn’t.
One of my favorite 15 minutes of fame in Chicago was when I was at Excalibur nightclub in downtown. The uber popular rap band: Snap was performing, I knew the DJ who was working and he gave me an awesome opportunity to be the opening act for Snap. The song I chose was “Burning the Ground” by Duran Duran and it was perfect. From the lasers, smoke and all the incredible lighting effects Excalibur had, it was the ultimate setting for me to open for Snap.
Chicago also gave me a much more diverse pallet to work with as a photographer. Inspired by Duran Duran’s night photography, I embarked to master capturing photographs at night and didn’t care what the subject was. Whether it was people, traffic on highways or churches, I wanted to master the night in photography.
My journey in life eventually led me out of Chicago and to Portland, Oregon where my creative life went down a different path. I began working with local artists in different clubs and recording studios along with keeping my photography going with architecture and up & coming models and musicians. I had the honor of meeting Dave Koz, the Dan Reed Network and worked very briefly with Jane His Wife and His Boy Elroy.
Portland was more of a transitional stage for me and the beginning of a very dark period in my life that began when I received two horrible phone calls. The first phone call was my mother’s husband telling me she was sick and I should come and visit. She was already a survivor of emphysema, a survivor of cancer, but cancer was coming back in a way none of us expected because she was already past the remission stage.
I spent some time back in Chicago with my mum, taking her to a restaurant she really wanted to go to: Ed Debevics in downtown. It’s a 50’s diner where the servers were extremely sarcastic to the guests, but it was all fun and she had a blast going there. I also shared with her my earliest memory about when she tapped me on the nose telling me not to bite. This was when she was breast feeding me when I was a baby. She was extremely surprised I remembered this, but she also remembered that moment too. This was also the last time I had the opportunity to cut her hair, which was something I loved to do. I taught myself how to cut hair when I was 13, and eventually began to do my hair, my brother’s, friends and my mum’s hair.
My trip in Chicago eventually needed to end and I headed back to Portland. Unfortunately not too long after I returned to Portland, I received a call from my mother’s husband telling me she went into a coma and I needed to get back to Chicago immediately. I was on a plane that day and when I landed in Chicago, my mum stayed alive for me and gave me practically 24 hours to be able to be next to her, talking to her, praying with her and encouraging her to go to the light when God was calling her.
My mum went home and it was then, I started to realize even clearer how important what my life will mean and what I will do. My legacy and my life’s mission needed to be achieved and as I flew back to Portland I had many changes I needed to make in my life.
Shortly after getting back to Portland, I packed up my gear and made my way to Los Angeles. My old band mates made their way to LA, so I was very excited to be working with them again as well as moving to the city where if you can make it there (like New York), you can make it nearly anywhere.
Los Angeles proved immediately to be a disappointment with pollution, homelessness, not being able to live “in” the city and what surprised me even more; a lack of creativity with artists to their best to copy each other. Why it was happening, I wasn’t able to figure out, but I saw it as an opportunity to shine above the rest because I do not copy, constantly seek to do something different than others and always seek to be the best I can be in my craft.
My first place I lived in Los Angeles was a small hostel across the street from the Wiltern Theatre but eventually had an amazing artist loft in Hollywood above the old Woolworth’s store right next to Boulevard Sound, where I met Rob Zombie and many other artists. The beginning of working towards the dream was happening within a couple months of landing in LA and in the blink of an eye it was ripped out from underneath me. Literally.
Or should I say my life was rattled, rolled, shaken and crumbled down to the ground with the Northridge earthquake. It was also the enemy’s first attempt at my head because I awoke to the a piece of art that was a mirror falling off my wall and going through the cushion of the couch I fell asleep on, nearly decapitating me. Everything in the studio was destroyed except for my backdrops that were up and the aquarium.
What an incredible eye opener for me. My place was destroyed, but my will and spirit was not broken. But again my will & spirit was tested because two weeks after the earthquake a “cholo” gang member and his other gang members and girls ripped open my car door, and put a gun to my head at a 7-Eleven - telling me he didn’t like how I talked to the employee at the store and how I needed to go inside and apologize to the employee.
That was the 2nd time the enemy tried to take my head and stop me. But again, my will and spirit was determined to not let it stop me and I kept soldiering on towards my goals & dreams in the city of Lost Angels.
As I was rebuilding my life and career in the mid 90’s, I began to photograph more of what I loved which was extreme sports and more high-profile bands and musicians. From the X-Games to the Warped Tour, Moby, Duran Duran, Save Ferris, Limp Bizkit and more, my career was exploding. I was photographing concerts, being featured on dozens of magazine covers ranging from inline skating, skateboarding and snowboarding to going on tour for the National Inline Skate Series as the official tour photographer. Life was really ramping up and it heading in the direction I could only dream of and suddenly…
I woke up in the emergency room bloody, bandaged, in traction and scared to death with a surgeon telling me I’ve been brought back to life after being involved in a terrible accident. It turned out I was involved in a head on collision that I did not see coming. I was stopped in a median lane, looking behind me to merge into traffic when a woman speeding smashed into my bright red Nissan sports car. My car was hit so hard, it spun around 180 degrees, was nearly a meter shorter, the engine was smashed into the cockpit of the car, crushing and pinning me between the back seat and steering wheel. The car was on fire, and I had to be extracted from the vehicle.
The woman who hit me, walked away from the accident and went home that day, but I on the other hand was not as fortunate. I had to learn how to walk, see, think, sit, eat, and practically everything that we take for granted in life. I had no memory of who I was or my daily activities, suffered severe damage to my spine, my brain and groin. But, the oddest thing that my neurosurgeon had a hard time understanding was how my external injuries were healing at a rate he’d never seen before. In fact, I didn’t need to have reconstructive plastic surgery on my face and over time began to walk again, run again, see clearer again; which would not have been possible if I didn’t have my sunglasses on and the lenses being embedded in my eye sockets.
I did have to have bilateral inguinal hernia surgery eventually due to the injuries I sustained being crushed in the car and for the most part, to the average person on the street, they could never tell I was even involved in such a horrible accident. But to everyone who knew or knows me, knows that even to this day I deal with the aftermath of it. From my hips not cooperating properly resulting in my legs dragging sometimes, to full gaps of memory loss, a spine that is no longer as straight as it used to be and migraines that take on a new level I wished would never happen.
This accident was another attempt at my head that left me near paralyzed, no recollection of who I was, lost 99% of my clients, and the original owner of the X-Games and many others thought I died in the accident. Which was totally evident when I saw him at a summer X-Games in LA a few years after the accident when he turned white as a ghost in fear when I showed up.
But over the course of a decade, I rebuilt my body, slowly rebuilt my business and have been tilting against the windmill of life with a sole purpose; to be obedient to God’s vision he gave me and change the world with my photography, be a philanthropist and give back to the world through example, teaching and sharing my story that through it all we have a choice to rise above our past and be a light in the world.
Then there was a Thursday afternoon in 2006 when I felt an odd tinge in my chest. I thought it was an anxiety or stress tension in my chest, but over the course of a week I continued to photograph engagement shoots, have meetings and go about life. But the problem was over the course of that week it became increasingly more and more difficult to take a few steps without my neck hurting or my arm hurting. It was as if an elephant was sitting on me and the pain was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I called my doctor and she suggested I go to the hospital because she thought I might be having a heart attack. That sounded entirely crazy to me because I was healthy, fit and leading an active lifestyle with fitness and proper nutrition.
I rode my motorcycle home and was taken to the hospital, where they ran a few basic tests on me with all results coming back normal. But I still couldn’t walk without experiencing the pain. The nurse suggested they take some blood to do more tests and within 20 minutes they ran back to me to inform me I was having a heart attack and had to rush me into surgery immediately. A doctor told me I could either have them go in and find out what is going on or could do a series of other tests and risk additional damage to my body. I followed the surgeon’s recommendation and opted for the procedure.
When I awoke, I had a huge sandbag on my groin and a nurse telling me I had to leave it there to help my wound heal or else I would more than likely bleed to death from the procedure. It turned out I was having a heart attack at a very young age and to this day, my cardiologist still doesn’t know why I had one because I was totally healthy. Needless to say, I was yet again on another road to recovery still doing my best to be obedient to His vision and do what I believe deep down in my heart is my calling: to make a positive difference in the world on a global scale.
Fast forward a couple years and my business is thriving in the wedding and portrait industry and I’m traveling around the world for weddings in India, Germany, Mexico, Costa Rica, all around the USA and doing photo shoots throughout Europe. But sadly, another setback happened: the economy was on a rapid decline in California to where photographers were fighting tooth and nail on the road to zero dollars to photograph weddings, events and portraits.
The decline of the industry in California was not something I was not going to buy into and did my best to weather the storm. I did everything I could to drum up business to keep Esquire Photography thriving which required me liquidating nearly every asset I had, my life savings, maxed out credit cards and was on the brink of becoming broken.
But that was NOT going to stop me moving forward and have now based my business in both Minneapolis and Los Angeles which gives me the opportunity to be near my brother Tony and his family and keep my business moving forward in two cities that I enjoy working in.
Since landing in Minneapolis, I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many amazing people, I’m finishing my credentials to teach English, have discovered a new direction I’m about to take Esquire Photography and stumbled on #besomebody. #Besomebody is something that in a short amount of time, I’ve discovered there are other people like me around the world; passionate about doing what we love and empowering & inspiring others along the way.
What is crazy is the path of my life was and has not been filled with the “usual” setbacks and speed bumps along the way, but monumental moments that are like God and/or the universe ripping the carpet right out from underneath me.
But Albert Einstein said: each and every force of positivity is met with an equal and opposite force of negativity. For me, I interpreted that as the greater the negative force working against me, the greater the positive change I’m making in our world. The greater the positive impact I’ll have on one, two or hopefully many people on all corners of the earth.
Since movies are a big part of me, there are some quotes I hang tightly to that inspire me like: "Rise & rise again, until lambs become lions", "Pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever" and "A man can change his stars."
That’s an overview of what my life has been and if my story can do anything, it can give someone hope to keep tilting against the windmill of life. Yes it may suck at times, it may feel like you want to throw in the towel and give up. People may laugh at you, scoff at your dreams and think you’re out of your mind as you’re chasing them. But at the end of the day, they’re your dreams God gave you and it’s your responsibility to keep working towards them.
I can tell you without a doubt that the hardships you’ll go through in life may seem unbearable and from my own experience, have thought about throwing in the towel many times. I even struggle with survivor’s guilt, depression, anxiety and many other emotional struggles since my head-on collision, but I can’t quit. While I want to at times, it would mean everything I’ve endured and overcame in my past would have been in vain. Plus I would hate for my mother to look down on me with disappointment.
So don’t quit. Be the “crazy one” in the world. In fact, live by this quote from the Apple ad and you’ll be vindicated by those before you and I who accomplished the impossible:
“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
I’m a crazy one and proud of it. My legacy on my tombstone will say I changed the world and I know you can to.
Cheers and stay caffeinated!
