Who I Am—and Where the Story Leads

I’m an Alaska-based photographer, writer, and carpenter specializing in long-form, immersive storytelling. My favorite work demands a high tolerance for risk, a willingness to grapple with complex logistics, and the patience to let a narrative unfold. I’ve hauled gear alongside geophysicists across alpine glaciers, embedded with elite military rescue squadrons through grant-funded work, and excavated forgotten archives. I’m adept at adapting—to extreme settings, gnarly weather, and cantankerous gatekeepers who just need a little love. For me, it’s all about where the story leads.

An Inherited Curiosity

My curiosity about people and places began with my grandfather. I remember sitting on his lap as a boy, staring down at a faded National Geographic he held in his grease-stained hands. As he read the pages aloud, the faint smell of whiskey on his breath punctuated stories of distant cultures. His only time abroad was in Europe during World War II, yet he was a voracious reader and a provincial dreamer, fluent in all things international. After the war, he became a hard-working mechanic who understood the inner workings of far more than machinery. Looking back nearly sixty years, I realize how much of his curiosity I inherited. Often, when I’m standing in some vast and wild place that I know would have captivated him, I’d swear I can hear his voice in the wind.

Alaska and Work

My perspective is rooted in the physical realities of Alaska, a place that has shaped my life and work. In 1984, I survived a fatal avalanche in the Chugach Range. That experience stayed with me through everything that followed—from my years working in the oil industry in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez to my life today as a carpenter. I have a profound respect for people who work with their hands, know how to build, repair, and improvise. In Alaska, those skills can bridge deep ideological divides. Political labels matter far less than a neighbor’s willingness to pull your truck out of a ditch. When outsiders neatly categorize the North without having endured a single harsh winter here, most Alaskans chuckle. Here, you must have skin in the game.

Legacy, Survival, and Place

I’m fascinated by people whose connection to place is so strong that they seem to embody qualities of the landscape around them. I keep returning to stories of legacy, survival, and especially the aftermath of trauma. My writing and photography often braid scientific data and historical timelines with personal narratives—whether I’m investigating a Cold War-era glacier expedition or documenting a master blacksmith resisting the gentrification of a changing city.

From Landscape to People

I used to be satisfied to point my lens at austere environments. Today, I’m more interested in the people who inhabit them. I want to know what draws them there and what keeps them coming back. The conversations, the time in the field, and the work of turning it all into words and pictures deepen that understanding.