Here is Where it Began

One summer in high school, a friend invited me to his family’s cabin in Yosemite. It was in the southern part of the park, near the Big Trees.

The day of our hike, we drove north toward Yosemite Valley. On the way, we passed the turnoff to Glacier Point.

My friend decided to take the turnoff. I remember feeling impatient — I was ready to begin the hike, not stop for sightseeing.

When we reached the parking area, we walked quickly toward the overlook.

Anyone who has been there knows — you don’t see everything at once. The full view of the valley, the mountains, the waterfalls doesn’t reveal itself until you step all the way to the edge.

When I arrived at the railing and looked out, something happened.

I saw what I can only describe as a flash — a sudden clarity. It wasn’t lightning. It wasn’t dramatic. It was quiet and powerful at the same time. I felt as though I had been shown something important.

Later I read descriptions of experiences — what some call a moment of awakening — and that language felt close to what I experienced that day.

But at fifteen, I didn’t know that I was being awakened.

What I knew was this:

I felt as though I had been shown something.
Not just mountains.
Not just waterfalls.

I felt I had been shown life itself.

And somehow I knew — without understanding how — that this was the life I was meant to pursue.

When I left Yosemite, I didn’t realize I would spend the rest of my life trying to return to that feeling.

But I have.

When I returned home and had the film from my little 110 camera developed, I was disappointed.

The photographs were faded and blurry — nothing like the postcards in the gift shops.

But I wasn’t discouraged.

I didn’t want postcard photographs.

I wanted photographs that carried the feeling of being there.

That was the beginning.

That was the start of my lifelong pursuit —
to remain in that presence and awareness,
to explore through hiking,
and to create images that hold the feeling of being there.

When I was fifty, we opened a gallery. It felt like a dream fulfilled — a place to honor beauty and share what I had experienced for decades.

Years later, the gallery was taken. The house went with it. Most of the framed prints, the matted work, the furniture — all of it stayed behind.

The life me and my wife were building vanished.

But the camera came with me. It always has.

They can take buildings.
They can take walls.
They can take what hangs on them.

But they cannot take the desire to explore, to see, and to capture beauty.

Photography has never been a business to me.

It is how I observe life.
How I notice what might otherwise pass unseen.
It is how I stay close to what God first awakened in me in Yosemite.

It is a continuation of my story —
of walking with God throughout my life.

What Photography Is Now

Now in my seventies, photography has matured.

I don’t schedule it.
I respond to it.

It is woven into the rhythm of my days.
It is as natural to me as breathing.

My camera goes where I go.
Because seeing is part of who I am.

I’ll be sitting in the living room and catch the sunlight touching the snow on the mountains just right. Before I’ve thought about it, I’m on my feet. Camera in hand.

Fifteen minutes later, the clouds shift. I go again.

An eagle crosses the sky. I go again.

It isn’t urgency. It isn’t strategy. It isn’t even gratitude in the moment.

It’s response.

Gratitude comes later — when I see the image and realize I was allowed to take part in the life God placed before me.

I don’t chase images, and I don’t worry about missing them. I miss beautiful moments every day — and that’s all right. There will always be another sunrise, another shift of light, another passing eagle.

***

If something here stirs recognition in you — if you remember a moment in your own life when beauty felt sacred — then perhaps you have been walking this path longer than you realized.

This is what Visual Artistry has become — the art of walking with God through life.

It is the story of what began in Yosemite and continues today — a life of responding to that first awakening.

Through landscapes, portraits, and the human form, my photography honors the beauty of God’s creation and the dignity of every person.

These images and stories are offered not to impress, but to invite recognition — the quiet memory that you, too, have felt something sacred in the world within and around you.

And perhaps, in remembering, you may sense that God has always been nearer than you realized.