When we embark on a quest we do so when we are both inspired to an end and driven to achieve it.

My life's quest began with the inspiration of a hospitalized father who because of a tragic accident spent the last two years of his life cut off from the natural surrounds that he so loved. During this time I would go out once or twice a week and then print off the resulting images to comfort him. My mom would read the accompanying letter to him and together they would look through whatever creatures and scenes I was lucky enough to come accross that week.

When he finally died just over a year ago I continued the letters home to my mom and she still enjoys looking through them over a cup of coffee and in a quiet moment of reflection.

After each one is read and the images committed to memory, each envelope is placed in my dad's wardrobe and the overflowing boxes now hold over 100 letters and almost 5,000 prints that help describe the journey that this quest has had me follow.

This quest began purely from an act of love but almost 500,000 shutter-clicks later it has planted within me a lust for the natural world that in many ways extends beyond the prime goals that I had set for my own life's path. The quest for fame and fortune has long since been abandoned and the images that I try to capture are never intended to win a Pulitzer prize or recognition, but they are my attempt to document the beauty of the natural world around me and to provide insight to it from my own perspective.

That is why I wander with camera in hand, rather than establish a waiting post attempting to capture that perfect shot. Nature doesn't need a "perfect shot". It only needs to be witnessed and appreciated.

My tripod-less patrolling of the trails and byways of Florida's central corridor is a photo-journalistic way of capturing natural moments. And when I step off a trail into a ditch, leaning over some obscure little-wildflower, it is only my attempt to absorb its beauty on a macro level.