I'm a staff photographer at the Texas House of Representatives in Austin. I also accept editorial, commercial and advertising commissions. I grew up watching slide shows of my father's travels. In the 60's, he went around the world shooting slides with a Pentax Spotmatic that later became my first camera. I loved the intense colors of the Taj Mahal, Kathmandu prayer flags and his French colonial hospital that was overrun during the Tet offensive in South Vietnam. Yellow to start with, the hospital literally looked like Swiss cheese after it was retaken. Exotic tales of faraway places told over the hum of the projector's fan teased my interests, so I learned to shoot and process Plus-X and Tri-X in high school, and went to Texas A&M University where I graduated with a journalism degree. Later I earned a Masters of Arts in communications from The University of Texas at Austin. I attended the Eddie Adams workshop, Barnstorm X, and never will forget seeing Eddie welcoming us as we walked up the hill to the barn. I worked for over a decade as a photojournalist for several newspapers, and my photos won awards from the National Press Photographers Association, Communication Arts and Stern Magazine.
When I'm not working, I love fly fishing, riding horses and photographing in the American west. I lived in Ireland briefly, enjoy cowboy boots, am a pretty good two-stepper and make great migas. I won the first annual Taylor Jones Memorial poker tournament in New Orleans in 2008. Reports of Taylor's demise are greatly exaggerated.