Since I was five years old I had an interest in cameras. I would borrow my parents huge camcorders, their film cameras, and then their digital cameras. Once we had a couple digital cameras, I took the oldest one we had and started taking pictures of my Lego sets. I was extremely proud of all my creations and I felt like every step of the journey needed to be documented. I started shooting videos in my bedroom and continued to take photos of creative projects I was working on.
When I got to high school I became interested in fashion and followed countless accounts on social media for inspiration. As I honed my style, similar to how I took photos of my Lego creations, I wanted to take photos of my outfit creations. For a while I just took my iPhone outside on a tripod and used self timer and then as I went deeper into the space I met someone that would change my photography journey in a powerful way.
Dan Flores was just an account I saw featured on a big page I followed. When I looked on his profile I saw that he was actually from Seattle! Being as bold as I could be at the time, I reached out to Dan and after talking for some time we eventually met up to take photos together. My mom at the time was extremely skeptical, especially since I was 17 and Dan was 28. As crazy as this age difference might have seemed, Dan always treated me just like one of his friends, age meant nothing when we shot together. After months of shooting in Downtown Seattle every weekend together, I started to feel like I knew what I was doing behind the camera.
For my senior year my family wanted to go to Maui for my spring break and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to finesse my way into getting a nice camera to really commit to photo and video. Luckily my parents agreed that my joint birthday/graduation gift would come early in the form of my first real professional camera. I went to Best Buy set on an entry level Canon camera and then the clerk asked if I had seen the new (at the time) Sony mirrorless cameras. I had never heard of them but after he showed me everything, I was in love! We landed on the Sony a5100, a compact mirrorless camera that was capable of using any of the Sony e-mount lenses. I used this camera relentlessly to capture the Maui trip and then kept going on the photos every day I could. The summer before college I committed to photography and brought that energy to Portland with me.
During my four years at the University of Portland, I had the opportunity to meet and shoot with countless talented photographers and hone my craft even more! Now as a recent grad, I am ready to take my craft and go full steam ahead.