I had the good fortune of growing up in the beautiful state of Oregon, where I spent most of my childhood playing in the forests and wading in the creek that ran through my backyard, and going on camping trips throughout the Pacific Northwest. I developed an interest in nature from an early age, and as I got older, birds, in particular, became a subject of endless fascination for me.

My first forays into bird photography began when I borrowed my father's Nikkormat camera and 70-300mm lens to snap a few photos on our birding trips. I developed a more serious interest in photography in 2005, when I traveled to Minnesota to see the numerous Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls that came down from the north during that remarkable invasion year, and took a few grainy images of the owls with a point-and-shoot camera. My burgeoning interest led me to purchase my first DSLR the next year, and soon thereafter, my "birding trips" began evolving into "photo trips." My passion for nature and birds continues to grow with each passing year, and I now spend most of my free time working on my photography and planning my next photo trip.

When I'm not enjoying nature, I'm usually working for conservation through development of clean energy technology. In my "other life," I'm a science advisor in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and a member of the technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory.