It was a dark night on Mt Lemmon in Tucson, Arizona, the moon had been waning and was now nearly new. I had just entered the last semester of my senior year of college and was getting excited by the anticipation of graduation and starting pilot training for the U.S. Air Force. I was camping at nearly 8,700 feet above sea level with my friends on an early spring weekend, a nice getaway for us. My relatively new friend, Christian, had brought his camera to capture some photos of us. I always had an interest in photography, but had never taken the steps to get into it. I loved looking up into the vastness of the night sky, so I thought, maybe Christian can show me how to take some pictures. After eating dinner we cooked over a fire pit we had just built with surrounding rocks, I asked, “Do you think you can show me how to take pictures of the stars?”. I later learned this is called astrophotography. To my surprise, he was actually really excited to show me. He explained how to use shutter speed, aperture, and ISO to expose for and capture photos of the night sky. I wish I knew where those photos were to look back on, but the memory of the moment is sufficient for me. I had no idea that asking that one question would catapult me into a frenzy of learning everything I could about photography and how to get better. The next weekend, I had him take me around downtown Tucson to shoot some city scapes and street photography. I had fun and enjoyed learning more, but there was something different about capturing the man made world compared to the natural world. The next month, I took a trip back home to visit my dad. During that trip, I asked him for our family’s old Canon DSLR that we had from when my sister and I were growing up and playing sports. He didn’t have a use for it anymore, so now it was mine.

Fast forward to just over 2 years later, It was getting close to dusk while I was working out at the outdoor gym on my pilot training base in Texas. I saw a lightning storm rolling in to the northwest and realized the storm was going to be right over the massive lake nearby that stretched into Mexico. I drove home, grabbed my camera gear, and headed to the lake, windows down and full of excitement. In the dark, I found a rock slab that overlooked the lake. I set up my tripod and used the knowledge I had to the best of my ability to capture the lightning strikes over the lake. They may not have been National Geographic level images, but I was stoked. I had captured lighting! The thing about that night was I probably should have been studying for pilot training, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore, I had a new dream and passion.