The first photographs I ever took are still sitting in an album on my bookshelf.

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I was six years old, carrying a disposable camera around an RV park in Arizona, photographing roadrunners, rocks, a truck painted like a cow and at least one close-up of my grandpa's nostril.

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A decade later, I inherited my great-grandfather's 35mm camera and got access to my high school's darkroom. I learned to develop film and make prints. Then my world got bigger.

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I carried a camera through South and Southeast Asia, photographing wet markets, wildlife and faces. Photography gave me a reason to approach strangers. Sometimes we shared a language. Sometimes we didn't. Making a portrait still required a moment of connection and trust. Those photographs eventually became my first public gallery show.

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Along the way, storytelling became my career. I studied human development and international educational development, worked with creative teams in New Delhi and Addis Ababa, and helped build a local-language children's reading program across Southeast Asia.

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Eventually, I returned to the small Montana town that raised me, took over the roadside motel my great-grandparents built, and later created a restaurant that earned national recognition as a James Beard Award semifinalist.

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Through it all, the camera kept coming with me. It taught me that life is fleeting. A face changes. A room empties. Dinner ends. People leave. Places change.

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A photograph can't stop any of it. But it can take the story beyond the moment.

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Today, I photograph people, hospitality and events with a lifetime behind the camera and a career spent learning how stories work. I know firsthand that a restaurant is more than its food, a hotel is more than its rooms, and a portrait can tell you a powerful piece of a person's story before you've ever met them.