I’ll start by saying how beautiful I find your work. I find it liberating as a woman, that these pictures (to me) are all about the beauty and strength of the model. So a sincere thank you for allowing us to see your fabulous work. I am unsure whether or not you have answered this question before and if you have please let me know and I’ll look back… but are you a self taught photographer or have you studied. I find your lighting perfect!!!

Its always the most flattering comments I take the longest to respond to because I feel like I really need to do it justice.

It means a lot to me to here that my work reflects the strength and beauty of women. I shoot women because I think they are strong, beautiful and amazing. Obviously some women will always object to nude photos of women as objectifying, but Im very glad that my work is not seen that way. So THANK YOU!!

Im mostly self taught. I took a photography class in high school, then I took another one in summer school later in high school, then I taught a photo club my senior year of high school. But Ive never really had like a “formal” photography education.

I know very little about lighting for photography, most of my lighting knowledge comes from filmmaking and film school. Which yea, I did go to grad school for film production and my emphasis was Directing, so it wasn’t really camera related, but its certainly training in the visual medium.

Most of what I know about photography comes from ready photo books, experimenting and talking to photographers.

I think the best part of photography is really training your eye to capture what you want to see. That I dont think really anyone can teach you. But the more technical knowledge you ahve the more tools are at your disposal to know how to capture what you want.

Hope that makes sense.

Derek