Meet Your Photographer

Choose to Be Seen

At Shot Group Photography, the goal is simple: create portraits that help you recognize yourself again. present, powerful, and authentic. The version of you that deserves to take up space.

My approach comes from a life spent around high stakes and high standards. I served 24 years in the military, including multiple special operations deployments. That experience taught me how to read a room, earn trust quickly, and guide people through moments that feel exposed. Those skills matter in a portrait session. Many clients walk in thinking they are “not photogenic,” or that they need to perform. They do not. They need direction, patience, and a photographer who can hold the space with confidence.

Photography found me after service, when I needed a new kind of challenge and a way to slow down. I still remember the first image that hooked me: a hawk lifting off from a rock spire at Red Rock Open Space in Colorado Springs. Technically, it wasn’t great…But it meant something! It gave me a reason to be still, to pay attention, and to start coming back to myself.

So I founded Untamed Aperture as a nature photographer, and then I shifted when I began an internship with award-winning photographer Shannon Squires. Watching her work changed how I understood portraiture. A portrait can be art, but it can also be a turning point. When someone sees themselves with dignity and intention, it changes how they carry themselves afterward.

That is why I built Shot Group Photography around a guided, fine art portrait experience. You will never be left guessing what to do with your hands or how to stand. I will coach you through posing, expression, and micro-adjustments that flatter real bodies and real faces. The technical side is handled, so you can focus on being present.

In Start With Why, Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.” After a career of developing service members into leaders, and more than a decade of teaching experience in high school and college, here’s what I discovered: people are my purpose. I build people and help them find meaning…and photography is how I do it now.

One client in her 70s told me she had not worn a dress in 30 years. After her session, she went straight to the store and bought one. That is what happens when people see themselves differently.

Credentials matter because they reflect commitment to craft. I am a Certified Professional Photographer (CPP) in the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), and a PPA Master of Photography. I pursued those standards for one reason: so your portraits are made with consistent, repeatable excellence in lighting, posing, printing, and archival-quality presentation.

If you are ready for portraits that feel honest and fully you, I will guide you through it, start to finish.

Creativity. Authenticity. Memory.