How did you become a designer/artist?

I started playing music when I was 13 and eventually ended up performing and recording for 20+ years. Photography was a natural evolution, it's so closely related to my experience with songwritng in it's workings and form. For me, the thrill of writing music is to take emotions and an experience I could never fully articulate with words and make something you can hear. I find that same expression in photography, only now the artifact is something you can see.

Where are you from originally?

I was born in Norfolk, Virginia.

Who were your main influences growing up?

As a person without question my father. He loved and fostered my creativity and taught me the importance of working hard and making things. I loved movies and music and those worlds I would lose myself in still have a profound influence. The Who, Led Zeppelin, Marvin Gaye, Kiss, The Beatles... they were all such a great soundtrack. At that time in my life movies were more accessible to me than still photographs, The Great Escape, Planet of the Apes, Blade Runner, Alien, The Godfather.. too many to list, but all mesmerizing imagery. The way those songs and pictures made me feel is what I put back into my images.

Did you go to art school/college for design or are you self-taught?

I am self taught, though that's somewhat of a misnomer...books, magazines, and the endless questions I have asked others have been my education. My Mom was a librarian and I like to read - that's been helpful as well.

Any advice or tips to novice designers?

If you have a hero or someone that inspires you, look at who influenced them - it will show you who they are and unlock their work to you on a much deeper level.

What has been the most rewarding and challenging project you have worked on?

The Transitory Series, because I had no idea how to make it for such a long time. Finally I made one image that broke through and taught me how to find a particular quality of light that reveals a glimpse of something beautiful and unexpected.

What is your favorite design piece? Why?

The Chrysler Building because it always lifts my spirit and makes me dream, it's so much bigger than life and sits completely out of time. I look at it and can picture it in any year, past or future. That ideal is something I strive for in my own work.

What are you doing now?

Living in New York City working on a new series titled Gotham. Also teaching at School of Visual Arts and accepting select commissions to make new images. In September a selection of the Transitory images will be published as a handmade limited edition book, alongside a solo exhibition of the photographs at the Stephen L. Clark Gallery in Austin.

What are your plans for the future?

To publish the Transitory and Gotham City photographs with a major publisher and avenge my detractors.

What American artist inspires you most?

If I had to say one it would be Irving Penn...but I want to sneak in Robert and Shana Parke-Harrison, John Christensen, The Starn Twins, and The Cohen Brothers.

What unlocks your creativity?

The people I love...they inspire and kick me in the ass. I want to make great things to share with them.