I never went to school for photography, I graduated from USC with a degree in poetry and East Asian religion/culture. I discovered photography at an early age...my dad was a collector when no one wanted to buy photography.... '60s/early '70s....... so we have Steichen, Steiglitz, Weston, Man Ray, Diane Arbus and J.H. Lartigue, C. Bresson all over the house, covering every wall. The people in those images were like my strange extended family as I grew up.

One day my mother was cleaning out her closet and found her old Nikon F, her student camera from university. She sent it to me in LA. A week later my friend called me to see if I could shoot some snaps of Blues legend BB King on his 69th birthday for a special documentary he was filming. I didn't even know how to load the camera and somehow later that evening I was backstage in BB King's dressing room, listening to him play the Piano and making pictures. That was the moment I decided to focus on photography, come what may. That was 15 years ago.