In 2005, I started taking pictures.

I had always liked to document my friends and moments, but never in the form of a photograph. Just in little snapshots for my scrapbooks and memories. But a switch flipped that year, and I started looking at everything differently. I had a new hobby.

I started with a little Lomo point and shoot film camera, and eventually moved on to a Canon digital Powershot that I would set to the “underwater” setting because I liked what it did to the colors. I became obsessed with taking pictures. My friends became my muses, and I would invite them over and photograph them in my apartment against a wall that I would constantly paint different colors.

In the summer of 2006 I spent nearly every day wandering through Chicago alleys with my friend Michael, sipping gin & tonics out of coffee mugs, and breaking into abandoned buildings to take pictures of the remains. Our favorite being the old Rawleigh building in Freeport, Illinois. I remember casually walking into the Carson Pirie Scott building on State street just after it had closed for good, and sneaking past security and into the elevators. We got to explore what had been left behind — dismembered mannequins and all. It was absolutely thrilling.

I took pictures of everything I saw and had a camera with me everywhere I went. I still do — but this is when it all began, and the world became new to me. These were the early years that I will always remember as finally finding my passion after years of not thinking I had one or was good enough at anything. These are the years that I found my purpose.

These pictures are still my most favorite. Before the internet fed me a constant stream of other people’s photos. Before I made a single dollar from photography. Before I posted them for likes. Before I tried to appeal to a specific client. Before I took photos for anyone other than myself. I had found my very own style and process, and sunk my teeth in. Though it has constantly evolved and changed, these images will always have my heart and feel the most like me.

Bury me with these.

Thank you to my friends that let me experiment on them in this time. For being vulnerable, patient, and willing to get weird. For trusting me to always document them at a time when it wasn’t the norm. And a very special thank you to my long lost friend, Michael Hathaway, for lighting the fire and teaching me that sometimes headlights are the best lights. That the dirty couches in the alleys are potentially art. That there’s always an opening to an abandoned building if you look hard enough (and bring a screwdriver.) That magic is everywhere and everyone is beautiful. That “life is…”

Where are you, friend? Let’s have some gin.