IT STARTED BEFORE THE CAMERA.

I grew up in the heart of New York City. At seven, I was acting in commercials and appearing on Nickelodeon and The David Letterman Show. At eight, I performed a solo piano piece at Carnegie Hall. I sold my first oil painting at ten and began composing original music by fourteen. I did not understand it then, but each medium was teaching me how to hold attention, create emotion, and tell a story without explaining everything.

I discovered photography in my early twenties, and for the first time, all of those instincts came together. The camera gave me a reason to look longer, travel farther, and become curious about lives entirely different from my own. What began in New York eventually carried me across oceans, mountains, forests, and ice. That journey led me to become an in-house photographer for the National Aquarium, with work in National Geographic, Discovery, and other major conservation platforms. Today, I work across wildlife photography and filmmaking, giving talks, privately mentoring students developing their portfolios, working with conservation organizations and nonprofits, and leading photography tours around the world.

The part of this work I am proudest of has little to do with how far photography has taken me or the value placed on my time. It is watching a student transform something they carry within themselves into a photograph that allows another person to see it and feel it too. Through my work with nonprofits and the underserved communities, I have seen photography become far more than a craft. It can create a space for people to tell their own stories on their own terms. Photography does not give anyone a voice. They already have one. Sometimes it simply helps the rest of the world stop long enough to listen.

The same belief guides my work with wildlife. In a world crowded with noise, a photograph can create a moment of stillness. It can bring someone face to face with a life they may never encounter, illuminate what is at stake, and make what once felt distant impossible to ignore. A photograph cannot protect a species or restore a habitat on its own, but it can change the way people see. It can turn attention into understanding, understanding into care, and care into action. That is why I make photographs and films:

not simply to prove that the wild exists, but to illuminate what matters and make the living world harder to overlook.