Meet our resident videographer and photographer

How did you get into photography and videography and how did you come to be with San Diego Musical Theatre?
I’ve been involved in photography and video since high school, when I would spend my afternoons in the dark room, under a red light surrounded by the sweet smell of chemicals. Whether it was photography, videography, painting or sculpture it was art, or even the idea of a representational image that has drawn me in. San Diego Musical Theatre first hired me to do video for their Christmas show, White Christmas at the Birch North Park Theatre after I had been doing work at the Old Globe for years.

I have two favorite video productions I’ve worked on at SDMT – West Side Story because of the stark, contrasty look of it and its iconic status in the musical theatre community, and Damn Yankees, which I did a whole series of “live baseball cards”, where I filmed and inserted the cast of the show into a vintage baseball card frame, making  living moving baseball cards. Hmmmm, both productions directed by James Vasquez. What a coincidence. 😉

What is your pet peeve when it comes to photographing people?

I honestly don’t have a pet peeve about photographing people. Everyone, myself included, can find looking into the lens with all the insecurities that brings a tough thing. I just feel lucky to be allowed to capture their image.

 

What are your favorite things/subjects to photograph and video?

I love doing headshots. Every face is different, because of shape, age, pigment, expression and lighting. You can take a billion shots of peoples faces and no two will be identical. From the time I first picked up a pencil to draw, the first thing I sketched, and the first thing I draw now, is faces.

 

What are your least favorite things/subjects to photograph or video?

Inanimate objects, whether it be buildings, cars, anything that doesn’t live and breathe, doesn’t draw me in. Photography and video, to me, is a communication between the subject and photographer. Without that relationship; film, video and photography, for me, don’t come to life.

 

If you could pick any project to do next what would it be and why?

I would love the opportunity to photograph 100 people in a day. Young, old, short, tall, skinny, round, wrinkly, angry, smiling, grimacing… the variety, the flood of faces, would be a joy.

 

What have you learned from your photography and videography?

What I learn on a daily basis from photography and video is that it truly is the study and practice of capturing, interpreting and controlling light. Bright light, hard light, soft light, afternoon light, morning light, all falling on and bouncing off of every imaginable surface and texture. It’s simply fascinating and a source of a lifetime of work.