Why I Became a Photographer, and Why I Blog My Stories

At a very young age, school was never easy for me. I was misdiagnosed and pushed through each grade without the proper support. By the time we moved to a new place, my teachers told my parents that I couldn’t read or write. I was in grade three, and they said I was ADHD and OCD. Learning was a challenge, and I struggled my way through school year after year.

But I had one outlet where I could express myself: art. I loved to draw. Drawing was the one way I could take my thoughts and feelings — the things I couldn’t always put into words, and give them form. My sketches became my voice. Through the years, I often won school art awards. They may have been small acknowledgments, but they told me something important: I had a way of creating, of telling stories without needing words.

Years later, after homeschooling one of my sons, I knew I wanted to build a career for myself. I wanted something that would let me create, that would let me keep telling stories. Photography felt like the natural choice. At first, I started with families and kids, but soon I felt the pull toward something more artistic, work that went beyond simple portraits. I wanted to create images that looked and felt like art.

That meant learning Photoshop. For someone with learning challenges, taking on a whole new program was daunting. But I pushed through, because I knew this was the direction I wanted to go. I’ve always loved old movies, and one of my very first creative projects in 2016 was inspired by that love: Jekyll and Hyde.

The idea was simple but symbolic. To me, life is like a chess game, full of strategy, patience, and consequences. And like Jekyll and Hyde, we all carry two sides within us. One is impatient, aggressive, demanding the next move. The other is patient, measured, willing to wait for the right moment. I wanted to capture both sides of one man, locked in a game of chess.

I put out a call for a model, and one man stepped forward. I asked if he was willing to shave and his answer was “Yes”. For Hyde, we built a hump into his jacket, gave him fake teeth, and the makeup artist dirtied his face. I told him: “Fall into this character, emote. Be angry, be restless, be the side of us that can’t wait.” He did exactly that.

Then he shaved, slicked back his hair, and transformed into Jekyll. I got him to change his vest from a red to a rich blue. I gave him a pocket watch and a pipe. He leaned into the character perfectly, patient, calm, waiting for the right moment to make his move.

The contrast between the two was striking. One man, two sides, a life-sized metaphor for the struggles we all carry. I was so proud of what we created together. To this day, I still look back on that image as a turning point, the moment I realized I could bring the worlds in my head into reality through photography.

Behind the Scenes: Jekyll and Hyde

When I created this image, I knew the lighting had to help tell the story just as much as the costumes and expressions did. To make it work, I actually photographed him twice, once as Jekyll and once as Hyde, and then blended the two together in Photoshop. Shooting them separately gave me the freedom to light each side differently, so their personalities would really show.

I also wanted the look to feel like an old movie. Both characters wear tall black top hats and tailcoats, with contrasting vests—Hyde in a bold, aggressive red; Jekyll in a calm, rich blue.

The chessboard is my son’s; I borrowed it for the shoot because it pulls the whole scene together and reinforces the life-as-strategy metaphor.

The pipe and cigar smoke you see curling up isn’t real, I painted it in afterward using a Photoshop brush. I also added a subtle brush of light above them so it feels like that’s where the illumination is coming from, pulling your eyes to the players at the board.

For Jekyll, I kept the light softer and more even. It gave him a calm, reflective look, with just enough highlight to catch the pipe smoke and the glasses. It felt thoughtful and steady, like someone who has all the time in the world to make his move.

For Hyde, I went the opposite direction. I used harsher, more directional light that carved strong shadows into his face. It brought out the tension, the restlessness, that aggressive energy that feels like he can’t sit still another second.

Blending them together into one image was the fun part. The chessboard became the perfect symbol of strategy and consequence, and the lighting turned into part of that metaphor. Jekyll is patience. Hyde is impulse. Two sides of the same person, brought to life in a single frame.

That photo meant so much to me that I had it wrapped on my Jeep. For ten years, I drove with that image displayed proudly, a rolling billboard of my creativity and my vision. Eventually, I traded that Jeep in for a Gladiator, and now I’m dreaming up the next wrap. But no matter what, that Jekyll and Hyde image will always have a special place in my heart.

Blogging became a natural extension of my photography. Writing was always hard for me, but I figured that if I blogged regularly, I would get better at expressing myself. Over time, that’s exactly what happened. My blogs became my way of pairing words with images, of explaining not just what I created but why.

More recently, I’ve even started making reels. I still don’t love being on camera, so I found another way: filming my surroundings and layering my voice over them. It’s another form of blogging, just in video, and it allows me to tell my stories without needing to be in front of the lens myself.

For me, photography has always been about more than pictures. It’s about stories, the ones inside me, the ones I build with my camera, and the ones I share through blogging. Blogging has given me the words to go with the images, even when words used to be the hardest thing for me.

I’ve been a photographer for nearly 20 years, and I’ve been blogging for over a decade. My images, my words, my projects, they’re all part of the same story. I may not be a published author, but in a way, my blog is my book, told one entry at a time. And maybe one day I will be published. That’s a goal. Until then, I’ll keep creating, keep writing, and keep telling stories, because that’s who I am.