Photography has always been a passion for me. I started as a child with a Kodak Hawkeye Instamatic II which I remember taking to England while visiting my grandparents. I still have some of those old photos -  pictures of animals at the London Zoo, images of airplanes at RAF London British Aviation Museum in Hendon, and family portraits with our grandparents in their back garden in Fareham.
Years later, I traveled throughout the United Kingdom on my own. At that time, I took a previously enjoyed 35mm Minolta SLR I had purchased at a second hand shop.
While staying in a youth hostel in Oban, Scotland, it was stolen. I was devastated. It was like losing my best friend. I had only just begun my travels but there was no way I could continue without a camera, so I purchased an old Russian Zenit from a camera shop on the hill in Oban. The shutter didn't sink properly, and it made such a noise when I snapped a photo, but it was just what I needed to continue on my way.
Now, finally, after years of introspection, I am taking photojournalism at Loyalist College. I shoot with a  Nikon D700, a camera I love, and I attempt to capture more than just the picturesque and familial. To me, candid photos are the best kind of photos. Capturing someone in the moment is the truest kind of picture - faces and expressions are real, and honest.
As for writing, it is my way of expressing myself. I am a very private person, and am known to be quite quiet in conversation, but what I lack in conversation, I make up for in my writing. I love to write about what I have witnessed, attempting to paint a picture with words, setting the mood and portraying the emotion.
My happy place is in photographing; my emotional vent is in writing. If I was no longer permitted to do either, I would no longer be me.