I was born in California, and it's in my blood. From the wine country of NorCal to the South Bay, this state taught me how to see. Manhattan Beach is home now, and the pier outside my door has become the subject I keep returning to, the place where I learned that a single stretch of coastline can hold a thousand different mornings.
My path to the camera was not a straight line. I trained as an actor, studied film, and spent my early years on sets in Hollywood, learning how a story moves: how a single shot, held a beat too long, can change everything an audience feels. When the industry shifted with the dot-com crash, I founded PCH Productions and kept working, first in entertainment, then as a consultant helping brands and agencies navigate a social media landscape nobody had a playbook for yet. Every one of those chapters was about the same thing: how to tell a story that makes someone stop and feel something.
When I committed fully to photography, I became a travel and commercial photographer, traveling to 30+ countries to shoot for brands including Leica, Four Seasons, The Dorchester Collection, MGM Resorts, Acura, Toyota, LuluLemon, GAP, Birdwell, HODINKEE, and Baume & Mercier. The work has been featured by GQ, The Getty Museum, Travel + Leisure, ABC's Nightline, Good Morning America, Elle, InStyle, Details, and the Los Angeles Times.
Through that work, I was asked to become a Leica Ambassador and a member of Meta's Creative Council, with creative work spanning technology and advertising. One of the projects I'm proudest of has nothing to do with a brand at all: I partnered with VSCO and a nonprofit organization in Malawi to document their work empowering orphans, and ended up teaching some of the kids photography using whatever mobile cameras we could get into their hands. It's stayed with me longer than most campaigns have.
But the work that matters most has always been the quiet work: walking the streets of Paris, Cannes, New York, and Manhattan Beach, waiting for the moment the ordinary becomes something worth keeping.
I have always believed an image is worth more when it is rare. I keep my editions small, and I do not flood the market with my work. The pieces here are printed, framed, and signed here in the South Bay, meant to be enjoyed the way I shot them: one frame, fully seen.
Pier Pressure began as a love letter to one stretch of Manhattan Beach coastline. Over three volumes, it has traveled from the South Bay to New York, Paris, Cannes, and Sydney, then come home again. The thread is the same: I find the beautiful in the ordinary, the moment just before or just after, the human story hiding in plain sight.
Thank you for standing here with this work. Every frame is a place I stood still long enough to notice something. I hope you find a few worth standing still for too. If something resonates, I'd love to hear about it. Drop me a note on Instagram.