They say that travel changes a person. For me, travel confirmed for me what was in my heart and opened a world of possibility -- pun not intended. In 2015 I was lucky enough to go to India with school. India is an extraordinary country and a photographer's dream with all the vibrant colors and textures. I brought my trusty camera with me and couldn't help but want to capture with my lens everything my eyes were seeing. I wanted to freeze everything I saw in the moment. I wanted to keep the experience forever.

One of the many things my class got to see was the Taj Mahal. In person, it's far more majestic than it is in pictures or reference books. When you are standing in its shadow the details are far more intricate and the size so much larger than you could possibly imagine. At some point, it all began to overwhelm me in a good way. I slipped away from my group and went to sit outside, getting some air and just processing the wonders around me. As I was sitting a group of women excitedly approached me. They wanted to take a picture with me. I happily obliged and took their photos, too. It was then, there in the shadow of this legendary building in this rich tapestry of a country so far from home that everything just made sense to me. Even halfway around the world in culture different from my own, people want to be seen. They want their image captured. To share with others. To make a mark. To exist, forever, a moment frozen in time.

In that moment, everything made sense to me and I found myself committed to my passion of taking photos and freezing time for people. These women had no way of knowing it, but they completely changed my life.

The trip to India was life-changing for me in other ways, too. You see, I don't have very many of the photos that I took while there anymore. I took hundreds of pictures. There was so much richness and so much story that I wanted to see everything and never forget. In my down time while in country I edited a few images, the ones that had spoken to my heart and were fresh in my mind. Those edited photos are the only ones I have left. My other images, the ones stored on my hard drive, are lost forever. Technology, as wonderful as it is, fails. When my hard drive failed, I lost the precious moments that even a return to India will never recapture. Because of that I've learned to print the photos that mean the most and I encourage others to do the same. It's why I offer my clients beautiful, heirloom quality prints to be cherished for generations. A photo can only speak the words that will change your life if it’s able to be seen.

Print your images. Stop time. Tell your story.