I’ve been a photographer for well over a third of my life, and climbing, by now. For me, writing has always come easy. It was one of the few subjects in school that I excelled at, with little study required. It was one of the few homework assignments I finished on time. As far as I was concerned, that was good enough. Later on I would learn that there was a fundamental difference between being technically adept and weaving together a rich tapestry.

One day in the recent past, I decided that a special photography project needed some prose to go along with it. Aside from the extraordinary circumstances that my project took place under, something in me harkened; I realized that my words needed to matter as much as the photos did.

Four years later, after much futility, frustration, and ultimately, finality, my first book was done. While I was in the middle of writing it, I knew from intuition that it would not be my last. I’d caught the writing bug, after all this time. I found myself craving the experience of sitting down and wrestling with blank pages. Like a sculptor removing excess clay, I began to enjoy this singular process of creation. So, there you have it. I entered the world of writing, officially, the same way I entered photography—necessity. It’s a different kind of song than the one I’m used to, but all the instruments are there. Only the genre has changed.