Current things I'm passionate about

Mornings at the Lake

Rain or shine, spring or fall, my camera comes with me on my morning walks near a local park here in Houston. There's a small lake that's become my quiet obsession, and I've never once arrived to find it the same as the day before.

The habitat is alive with an incredible variety of birds.  Muscovy ducks waddle along the banks like they own the place.  Mallards drift across the water in loose, unhurried groups. Diving birds disappear beneath the surface and resurface somewhere completely unexpected, and morning doves, robins, bluejays, and blackbirds move through the trees overhead, filling the air with sound before the rest of the world wakes up.

I have a deep affinity for water and the creatures that live in and around it. Something about the stillness of a lake at sunrise, the way light moves across the surface, the ripples left behind by something that just dove under, pulls me in every single time. I walk the same path along the shoreline, camera ready, photographing whatever's different that day. And it's always different. A new bird I haven't seen before. A duck doing something unexpectedly funny. Light hitting the water at an angle I've never caught before.

This project has taught me more about patience than almost anything else in my work. Wildlife doesn't pose. It doesn't wait for you to be ready. You learn to slow down, to watch, to anticipate and then to wait some more. That patience has made me a better photographer across the board, including in my portrait and senior sessions, where the best moments are often the unscripted ones.

I love this project because it has no deadline, no client, no agenda. It's just me, my camera, the lake, and whatever the morning decides to show me. The calm draws me back again and again and I never know what I'll find until I get there.