How did you get started in wedding photography?
Early adventurist meets wedding photography. I started planning a summit bid for Mt. Everest in the early part of 2000. I made a check-list of what I needed to purchase, while training and climbing tall high altitude mountains. I’d taken many classes, trained in crevasse rescue, wilderness survival skills, and trained with fellow mountaineers who tackled the Everest summit without oxygen. I took up photography seriously as a hobby in order to capture the sheer awesomeness and power of the mountain I would be climbing. I wanted to capture the intimidating Epic radness of what I viewed since I would have a little time at the summit.
A friend of mine was photographing weddings at the time. I thought wedding photographers were mostly women who told the bridesmaids to turn around and blow kisses, which I hated. As I tagged along with my friend for a few weddings, I decided wedding photography wasn’t actually bad. Quite the opposite, it was a genius creative outlet waiting to be explored. Little did I know what would happen as a result.
I said yes to some of my friends weddings in 2009, and from there, friends told friends who told friends. Suddenly, I’m getting booked up, being voted best photographer in Sacramento, and traveling across the nation to photograph forty weddings.
And now fast-forward to 2017, when I photographed the Mt. Everest base camp wedding (for the 2nd attempt with a couple) which went viral internationally, crashing my website, appearing on global talk shows, news networks, and trending across the world. That spurred a TEDx Talk at California State University of Sacamento, as well as speaking engagements at photography conventions and seminars for Nikon and Profoto. Reality shows have contacted me to appear on their show. Additionally, I have won multiple awards and have been included on many front cover bridal and photography magazines. I have spoken at conferences, universities, workshops, on top of traveling for weddings and adventure elopements. I thank God for giving me gifts and allowing me to shine. That’s kind of how I got started.