Believe it or not I'm a huge sports fan. Most people, when they see me, don't think I would be a sports fan but I am. I like watching sports (I watched the soccer game the other day it was awesome!), I like playing sports, and of course I like photographing sports.

My senior year at NAU I was the staff photographer for the athletic department. It was a great gig. It was like I was on an athletic scholarship to be their photographer.

When I moved to Tucson I met a man named Ben Rider while I was in a job interview with another photographer. Ben offered me a job photographing for the University of Arizona athletics' department on the spot. I of course took it. It was a dream job, I got to go on the road with the football team sometimes and photographed almost all of the home events. I made a lot of great connections and met some wonderful people. I also got to photograph a lot of athletes that later went pro or won Olympic gold medals. Pretty cool.

It was also perfect because it allowed me to slowly build up my personal business. A lot of photographers or wannabe photographers have to work as waiters or bar tenders and do photography on the side. I had the great opportunity to be a full time photographer straight out of college and I've now been doing it for eight years.

The only downside of the job was that it didn't pay well. The job was so great that other photographers were offering to shoot for free. When I was blessed with my second daughter I needed to make more money and a raise was out of the question. So I decided it was time to go out on my own and I couldn't be more happy with my decision.

So I'd like to give a shout out to Ben Rider and give him a special thank you for landing me the job and giving me the opportunity to be a full time professional photographer.