Who is this photographer guy?

I'm Jason and I love to photograph just about everything. Capturing nature (a hallmark of Michigan) is my stress reliever, portrait and headshot photography is my bread-and-butter. I'm most inspired by the unique, the colorful, and the expressive sights of the world around me and strive to photograph my subjects true to how I see them.

I feel like a person's beauty is made up of their pleasing features AND flaws, so I do my best to capture both and create an image of the subject's authentic self. This is my number one goal when making portraits of people.

Why Photography?

I really didn't understand the real meaning of my photography until many years after I started shooting in earnest. My wife was dog sitting for a longtime friend of hers with two wonderful pups, both getting a bit long in the tooth and absolutely loved by their family. I had never photographed pets before so with the wife at work, I decided to setup a mini-photoshoot with the doggos.

After the shoot and I got the keepers edited and touched up, we gifted two photos to them with frame, matte, and everything. I can still remember the look on their faces when we gave them those photos, you could tell they were just so appreciative! Over the next few years, our four-legged friends passed away and though I'd rather they still be around, it felt so good knowing that the family still had photos taken right before their health declined.

That feeling of knowing that I had captured something so special, so useful, so cherished; well, let's just say I continue to chase that feeling in my photography to this very day.

Why People?

When I was in first grade (trust me, I'm going somewhere with this), I was broke out of a near-trance by a classmate who was wondering why I had been staring at them for a few minutes. As if barely realizing it myself, I apologized and just said I was looking at their face. As happens with kids, everything was forgotten and forgiven pretty quickly but I realize now what was going on: I was studying their face.

I never quite put it together until recently, but people's expressions are fascinating. Everyone's features have some level of similarity while being wholly and completely unique to the individual. 27% of the U.S. population has blue eyes, but those eyes come in so many different shades and intensities, with varying levels of lines, secondary colors, and other characteristics. Skin tones are generalized, but the spectrum within those categories is seemingly infinite. And we use all sorts of jewelry, makeup, and hairstyles with different combinations of form, color, and style. When we say everyone is unique, EVERYONE is truly unique and that is beautiful.

So over the years I've developed a compulsion to photograph people for that reason; to honor, document, share, and show the real "Us" in everyone who stands in front of my camera. It's become one of my biggest artistic drives and something I think about constantly, an itch with only one way to scratch. Luckily, there's a need for photographs that show who people are. And I love to be a part of that!