11/08/2026
When I was six years old, my mom bought my sister and me two VHS tapes for Christmas. 1993 was the year. My sister got Mask (not the popular The Mask, but Mask with Cher and a really young Sam Elliott). She got me Backdraft because I wanted to be a firefighter (still do sometimes, thanks to that movie).
A few months later, I was with my Mammaw while she did her grocery shopping. For anyone blessed enough to have a grandmother who took you grocery shopping, you’ll know that those trips typically lasted three to four hours!
I would branch off to the magazine aisle. Thanks to my parents, I was a huge fan of the entertainment industry early on. I came across an issue of a magazine called American Cinematographer, and inside that issue was an article on how the production crew tripped explosives to make a roof collapse in the movie.
My brain exploded.
I thought movies were magic that had just always existed. That day, I learned that regular human beings, like you and me, worked together as a team to make this happen. Not only that, but the person who directed the movie was Ron Howard.
My child brain exploded again.
Ronnie Howard was the little boy who was always getting in trouble on The Andy Griffith Show. I thought he was a kid my age whom I watched on TV every day at 4:30 before the news came on.
Fast-forward years later, and I had spent twenty years inside the retail industry feeling like a tiny cog inside a huge machine. In my personal life, I was deeply sad and tried ending my life. When I woke up, there was a realization: I hadn’t followed my dreams.
I had done what was expected of the average person born in a small town: gotten a job and tried to work my way to the top. When that didn’t work out, rinse, repeat, and start all over again.
So, I decided that waking up from that was a sign to try and chase the dream I’d always had—to be a cinematographer.
It was a difficult journey, as anything tends to be sometimes. I had the great fortune of being what I had also wanted to be since a young age: a dad. I was lucky enough to have an intermission from school, during which I dropped out of one college I’d been attending (because they weren’t forthright about not having a film program) and went back to retail for a year to provide for my family while my wife was on bed rest.
Then, I joined Full Sail University and met my first guru, Randy Baker. Randy was the showrunner on several of my favorite Nickelodeon shows as a kid. He taught me almost everything I know.
My wife and I moved back to our hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia, and I graduated. I got lucky enough to join an Emmy-winning crew and be a cameraman for the documentary Lynchburg at War. I’ve also been fortunate to establish many great friendships along that route and have done work with some amazing local farms—a place in which I feel completely at peace.
That’s my story, from a childhood dream to a local cinematographer.
I’ve had the fortune of making my dreams come true. I’d like to make that happen for you as well!
