During my short career as a photojournalist, I was required to maintain and display a portfolio of my work. It was important that the portfolio be updated regularly with my newest photographs. Because the images could not stand alone as a representation of my talent, I also needed to enter contests, submit for conferences and self-promote, incessantly. It was an exhausting process that I was never really fond of or particularly good at doing. I wasn’t a great professional photographer. Sure, I was solid as a daily shooter at the newspaper, but how good can a photo of the city council meeting really be? In all seriousness, now that I am just an amateur with a nice camera (though my phone works just fine), I’ve found a love for taking photos again. For me it was never about the gear or the process; it was always about the people and their stories. This isn’t a portfolio; it is simply a collection of some of my favorite images from over the years, captioned with personal notes about the memories associated with time, person and place.

Caption information is available by clicking the i at the bottom of the photo.