A Little About Me
The path that lead me to the work of a Documentary Photographer began in South Korea. I was a runaway and an orphan, and everything changed when I was eight and a half. That’s when I found home in the embrace of a loving, beautifully diverse family in a country halfway around the world from everything I knew up to that point in my life. That shift lit something in me. A kind of promise to honor the dignity in every person’s story, using the only language in my young adulthood that ever felt natural to me...images, moments, the quiet truth that lives inside a photograph.
When I photograph someone, I’m stepping into a space of trust. And I don’t take that lightly. Over the years I’ve learned that the most meaningful stories don’t come when someone is told to pose. They come when someone feels seen. Not as a subject, but as a whole person. Someone with wisdom. Someone with worth. So I move slowly. I speak softly. I wait. And I keep waiting until the camera between us stops being a wall but rather a bridge between us.
I carry with me every wrinkle, every scar, every quiet smile…all the small details that might be loss to a less attentive person. I remember the laborers whose hands told stories even when their voices or words could not. The activists with eyes full of fire and conviction. The families whose love spoke louder than language. Every time someone shares their vulnerability with me, I understand it’s not a given. It’s a blessing and a gift. And I try to meet that gift with all that I am and have…both in skill and in heart.
Traveling across cultures and borders has shown me that dignity and empathy is a universal longing and must come before all other considerations. Whether it’s in a crowded refugee camp or a quiet kitchen in the countryside, I always seek to ask the same thing. Not what picture can I take, but rather what truth is being shared with and shown to me. That question shapes the way I document and the way I always strive to be present in the field and in my personal life too.
I believe that when we really see each other in all our layers and even in our contradictions, the small broken pieces we all carry within ourselves begins to mend. My highest hope as a documentary photographer, is for my camera to help me be part of that mending.
If there’s a story you’re hoping to bring into the light, I’d be honored to help tell it. Wherever your vision leads, I’m ready to walk there with you. With care. With respect. With a deep and steady commitment to the humanity we all carry.
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