Photography was never a hobby for me. When I was in middle school, I decided I was going to be a photographer. I had never picked up a camera, but I knew it was what I wanted to do. This set me off on a long and winding road to where I am now. Once I got into high school, I began the arduous process of developing my style. Anyone I was close with got used to me taking pictures of them constantly, trying to learn how the camera works and mastering the nuances of traditional, manual photography. My hands always reeked of photo chemicals and I was regularly skipping class to go out and shoot.

I thought I had it pretty well figured out until I got to Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, where my professors showed me just how poor my work was. At NAU I spent 4 years, studying photography, but mainly developing my eye. At this point I thought I was going to be a photojournalist. As I worked my way through multiple photojournalism internships, there was the dark reality looming that the field I was pursuing was a dying field. Once I graduated from NAU and started applying to publications nationwide, big and small, my worries were confirmed as I heard back from nobody. I had just graduated and held a degree that nobody was looking for, and in fact were laying off at record pace…