I firmly believe that the best way to describe photography is “painting with light.” With any piece of art, you need a subject. My subjects are the four-legged, funny, loving animals who steal your heart. The ones who share your bed with you; the ones who search the floor beneath you for any spilled crumbs; the ones who knock a glass off the counter while glaring at you; the ones who lay right beside you when you are having a bad day. The dogs, cats, reptiles, and occasional fish are the stars in front of my camera lens. Our pets do not live as long as we do, therefore capturing them in a moment is so important to me. I love to freeze time for a moment so their families can look back and enjoy them forever.

I started photographing my own dogs when I was a small child. I used my allowance to buy a disposable camera and raced home to use all of the film on my dogs. On my 18th birthday, I received my first Canon digital camera from my grandma. I was so elated that I could hardly fit the battery into the compartment. The first picture I snapped with that camera was Annie, my Basset hound. She was never excited about pictures, but she was a good sport. Then in 2013, I began volunteering for a local animal shelter. I believed that my pictures could make a difference in their adoption rate, and I was right. More animals were adopted due to my images. A couple months later, I met Tucker, a fuzzy, loving, independent Tibetan Spaniel. I photographed him while he was at the shelter, and he made the best model, I could have taken his pictures all day long! The next day, I came home to find him in my backyard. My sister knew we were meant to be together, so she adopted him for me. Tucker and I have been inseparable ever since and he is the main subject in many of my photographs. He is the reason I continue to photograph at shelters across northeast Oklahoma.