Great portraits preserve the past. They satisfy our desire to remember ourselves and to have others remember us. They record our passage through life - what we have have seen, what we feel, what we are.

Great portraits are unique. They don't look like snapshots from a family picnic.

Great portraits are gifts - to ourselves, of course, but also to the people who care about us.

Great portraits have a story. We all have stories. I've learned that there's almost always a story, a particular set of circumstances, that guides people to my studio. What's the story that you want to tell?

Great portraits feel real. They convey a rich, complex sense of who the person was when the photographs were taken. They flatter and they tell the truth without relying on fancy hair styles or clothing. How many photographs do you have that really feel like "you?"

Great portraits celebrate the subject as a changed and changing human being. In twenty years, will you be the same person you are today? Are you the same person you were ten years ago?

Great portraits invite the viewer into the world of the person in the photographs. The photographs lead you to wonder about the person in them. "What were they feeling?" "What was their life like then?"