My parents gave me my first 35mm camera when I was 14 years old, so I became hooked on photography at an early age. When I started college, I worked as a photographer (and later as photo editor) for the university. As a photojournalist, I learned to consider what the final print should look like for a given assignment, and I set the shot up accordingly. My work appeared in local, collegiate, and state-wide publications, and I was fortunate to win state competitions along the way.

Presently, I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Mississippi. At Ole Miss, I became interested in documentary film-making. It seemed a natural way to meld a love of history with a love of photography. I served as the editor and assistant-director of “Makin’ Do,” a documentary film on the history of rural women in northeast Mississippi. This film was given the 2008 Elbert Hillard Oral History Award by the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Now writing my dissertation, I live in southwest Arkansas with my wife and our two daughters.