I have just been named Photographer of the Year 2026 at Prairie State College. I want to tell you what that means to me — and why the story behind it matters more than the award itself.
It started with a Kodak Disc Camera. I was fourteen years old, and the moment it was in my hands I began photographing everything — my surroundings, my family, the unremarkable details of everyday life that somehow felt worth preserving. That instinct never left me. What I did not know then was that it would impact the rest of my life.
The long road to here
I did not take a formal photography class until recently. What I had instead was decades of looking, studying, and constantly trying to improve my photography. My background in art and design — Interior Design at Columbia College, Graphic Communications at Chicago State University — gave me a foundation in visual thinking, in composition, in the relationship between space and image. But photography itself I taught myself.
The turning point came when my daughter started playing club volleyball. I wanted to capture every moment of it properly, so I bought my first DSLR and did what I always do: I dove in completely. YouTube tutorials, books, hours of practice — anything that would get me off auto and into genuine understanding of the craft. Before long I was the unofficial team photographer. Through word of mouth I began getting work in real estate and event photography/videography. Every new genre of photography I was exposed to was an opportunity to learn something new.
That line has always followed me. It is not a comfortable thing to hear about yourself. But over time I came to understand it as one of the most useful things anyone ever said to me. It made me humble. It made me curious. It made me someone who walks into any situation — including a college classroom at 57 — without the arrogance of assuming I already have all the answers.
Why go back to school at 57?
Forty years ago, I joined the United States Navy with one goal in mind: to earn a college degree for free. Life, as it tends to do, had other plans. A career unfolded, a family grew, decades passed — and that degree never came.
Forty years later, here I am. Finally doing what I set out to do all those years ago on the day I enlisted. The only difference is now I have the time, the patience and deep desire for learning — and what better subject to build a degree around than the passion that has quietly defined my entire life?
Photography is not a late detour for me. Looking back, it never was. It was always there — from the fourteen-year-old with the Kodak Disc Camera to the parent on the sidelines of a volleyball court with a DSLR, learning everything he could about the craft he loved.
People ask me why I went back. The honest answer is: I made a promise to myself forty years ago, and I intend to keep it. The fact that I get to keep it while studying something that moves me deeply — that feels less like going back to school and more like finally arriving.