The World As I’ve Seen It

I don’t always know what someone will feel when they stand in front of one of my photographs. I don’t think that’s my role. What I do know is this: I felt something. And if the image is worth sharing, it’s because that feeling stayed with me. Because when I clicked the shutter, I wasn’t just capturing a place—I was absorbing a moment. Translating it. Holding onto something invisible, and trying to pass it along.

My work is not about showing the world as it is. It’s about showing the world as I’ve seen it.

That’s more than just a tagline. It’s a contract. Between me and the viewer. Between the emotion I felt and the emotion I hope you feel. It comes from a long journey—one that began in television control rooms, on the hardwood courts of the NBA, in freezing nights sleeping in garages, hauling gear in and out of arenas, editing until sunrise, and standing on the edges of canyons with no one else around.

The emotional foundation of my photography is forged from years of hard-fought resilience. I've directed live basketball broadcasts, stood on the court at Madison Square Garden, filming players I used to watch on TV. I’ve walked through the Mojave Desert alone, camera in hand, listening to the wind, hearing nothing else.

I am not just a photographer. I am not just a videographer. I am not just a director or technician or editor. I am an artist.

What makes my work different isn’t a lens or a filter. It’s the way I experience things. It’s the fact that when I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge late one night, exhausted and unsure, I looked up at the arches and thought about how awesome they were—holding weight. I thought about weight.

I thought about my own.

The weight of failure, of almosts, of being told no, of clawing back, of believing anyway. That feeling found its way into my work.

My images are high-contrast because the path that brought me here was high-contrast.

My compositions are deliberate because my choices in life have been deliberate.

My textures are layered because my story is layered.

Photography didn’t come easy, but when it came, it came fast. I had to teach myself how to see again. Not just technically—artistically. I needed to see not what was there, but what could be seen. The emotion in lightning at the Grand Canyon. The quiet defiance in a lone gulls slicing through skies. The stretch of a shadow across a snow-covered field just as the light fades.

Emotion. That’s what I’m chasing.

Sometimes it’s awe. Sometimes it’s peace. Sometimes it’s an ache. But always, it’s real.

My landscapes aren’t about locations. They’re about presence. About being fully there, open to what the moment gives me. When I took a convertible down the Keys, I wasn't just driving—I was floating between sky and sea, night and neon, past and future. Standing on the Golden Gate Bridge, the city staring back at me, I wasn’t just checking off a bucket list. I was absorbing what it felt like to be small and moved by something massive.

That feeling is what I try to bring into my images.

People often say my work has a style. They don’t always know how to describe it, but they know they feel something. I think that’s because it’s clear I felt something.

I believe deeply that if a moment stirs me, it can stir someone else. I don’t manufacture emotion—I find it. I follow it. And I build an image around it.

Each photograph I create is a result of years of emotional training: spotting not just a beautiful scene, but a meaningful one. Listening to when something internal says, "Stop. Right here. This matters."

The discipline that got me out of bed when my inner engine told me beauty exists before sunrise. The same fire that pushed me through late-night edits is the same one that tells me when a shot is worth waiting for—even if it means standing alone for hours.

That fire still burns.

I don’t chase trends. I chase truth—my truth. I want to create art that invites people to pause. To lean in. To wonder how something that seems so still can feel so alive. Like a friend talking to you.

I print on gallery-grade glass. I obsess over contrast, composition, color and texture. I push the limits of my gear. But that’s just the frame around it all. What matters is what’s inside the frame.

What matters is the feeling.

And if you felt something—anything—when you looked at one of my images, then the story I’ve been carrying has reached you. Maybe not in words. But in something deeper. In something real.

That’s the world as I’ve seen it.

Thank you for seeing it with me.

-John