Hello world! It's been a long time since I’ve added anything to my website and the world has moved and changed so much since my last update in 2020. It was the middle of the pandemic and I was still very much doing what I could to maintain sanity in the photo community.

The pandemic marked my being in the photography world for almost 20 years. I took an honest assessment of how I was feeling and admitted that it was increasingly leaving me dissatisfied and I needed a change. There are so many wonderful things about digital photography, but there were avenues that I felt more and more that I needed to explore. Specifically the act of slowing down, working more with my hands, and the opportunity to capture something beyond a single moment in time. While there is some level of visual flexibility in the latter through digital editing, I still felt as though pixel alchemy was too abstract; I wanted to be more involved in the process of bringing an image to fruition.

After much deliberation, discussion, and compromise with my fantastically supportive partner (and our pup) I applied to the Florence Academy of Art in Italy and completed their 3-year Drawing & Painting program. While living apart and going back to school at my age was probably one of the most challenging things I have ever done to date I don’t regret a minute of that time. Their atelier program is worth every penny for anyone looking for a solid technical foundation of what the masters did to create stunning works of art that endure for centuries. The transformation is real.

I’m thrilled to now have my own private studio in the UK where I’m able to paint all day and prep materials and be the mad scientist I always dreamed of as a kid. I feel so fortunate and grateful to have the opportunity to not only continue the traditional craft of oil painting like the old masters, but to be able to bring a piece of that to people’s homes in the modern age.

Thank you to my dear friends and family for supporting me along this wild journey… and for continuing with me across the bridge to this part of the Schmooniverse. And of course, thank you to my classmates and colleagues at FAA that made those years absolutely unforgettable!

P.S. While at school I also worked as a documentary photographer (surprise!) so here are a few vignettes of those most intense 3 years:

Surprise! Back with a Bit of a Change