A high school dropout from Los Angeles, I struggled to find my place in the world or integrate into something resembling a normal life. I was an unemployed filmmaker in Hollywood, chewed up and spit out by the creative industry. Demoralized and desperate for a fresh start, I began living in my car, traveling across the country photographing cowboys. Inspired by the outlaw country music I was raised on — artists like Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash — I felt a calling to photograph a world entirely different from my own: the American West.

Family and friends rarely held back their jokes or concerns. And I don’t blame them. Why would they? Any reasonable person would’ve suggested a safer path. I couldn’t be reasoned with. At the end of my rope, I bet everything on myself — buying groceries on credit cards, burning the candle at both ends, working myself to the bone.

Creating art was the only thing that could quiet my mind. Completely devoted to the craft, I’d spend countless hours in some rural McDonald’s mooching free McWi-Fi just to post my images and stories to an audience of none. I had an unwavering conviction to chase what most would call a fool’s dream – being a Western photographer.

As I photographed these cowboys, something in me was changed. My stone heart began to soften, and a spiritless life gained new meaning. God had broken me down to build me up into something new. Though I resisted it at first, folks began calling me the Cowboy Photographer.

The click of that shutter became my redemption song. Each frame, a prayer. Through the art, I healed. In the light I captured, I found God. My camera isn’t just a tool — it’s a testimony. Every frame is proof that faith can turn a broken life into a story worth telling.