About Me

Obligatory content ahead

Preface

I’m definitely not intriguing enough to fill a generic “the artist” page up, nor pretentious to a point to write this in the 3rd person. I haven’t traveled each corner of the world, been shipwrecked in the Arctic or revolutionized the industry in any way. But since these ostentatious pages are all but required, let’s give it a shot 🤠

Childhood

I was born in Texas on the Llano Estacado in 1990, perhaps this wonderful yet platitudinous land is what drove me to chase the magical places I do today. It’s flat out here y'all!

Little Tony grew up craving adventure and maybe even some misfortune, my mind warped by the likes of Daniel Defoe, Johann Wyss, Robert Louis Stevenson – why couldn't my plane crash one day leaving me in some dangerous yet enchanting world to fend for myself? Anything to test my limits and experience a world that wasn’t flat and dusty like home!

Young Adulthood

I had a happy, typical childhood! My hard working family taught me the value of a dollar, independence and the sacrifice that comes with attaining your life goals. Eventually High School came around – after being a “top athlete” in team sports I began looking for an outlet where I could be responsible for my own success and failures, which led me to pick up my first skateboard. That is a story for another day, but I ended up being pretty good at that! I started working on cars, designing in photoshop, building websites and picked up videography. All the while enthralled by nature and travel.

The Roaring 20s

My 20s were really, really good to me. I was enjoying life, and pretty much just floating wherever it took me. This seemed to work well, the “go with the flow” mentality had me learning skills and experiencing a random assortment of life’s offerings. I ran a few businesses, helped build some extraordinary cars, continued to compete in skateboarding, had a video production studio, ran a successful social and marketing company, organized events, and was was teaching photography workshops on the side. Holy run on sentence Batman.

So yeah, I tried a little bit of everything, enjoyed most of it, and learned life lessons and skills that will be with me to the grave. On top of that life was easy, maybe too easy. That “ikigai” we all have - longing for life’s meaning and our purpose, well it still eluded me. At this point I was lucky enough to have a skill set making me perfect to help my friends chase their dreams, but at the end of each day I had to ask myself what the hell was “I” doing? Late nights of drink and Anthony Bourdain stoked that fire inside of me for travel and adventure, but how?

Life then got weird for all of us around 2020 and '21. I was personally hit hard on several fronts - the marketing company couldn't hang with all the shutdowns, I contracted some crazy mystery illness and lost some very important parts of my life. Eventually I was at ground zero – a rational person would have racked up a hellacious therapy bill, fired up indeed.com and got back to the grind. That thought physically pains me, and through some masochistic twist of fate I found the misfortune and adventure I was looking for.

Fall of ‘21 I gutted my Hummer to build “H2Roam” - my take on the that good old VanLife. I bought the H2 earlier in the year with plans to use it on smaller trips, but now I was ready to dive in for months at a time! Some of you might be thinking that’s a strange choice, but its just big enough to be comfortable for some part-time living, and incognito enough to park overnight at a trailhead and not get kicked out. Perfect for me to hit the road and see if I could actually shoot a decent photo, and maybe find that ikigai along the way.

Recent Travel

Spring of ‘22 I started at Big Bend National Park for 3 weeks, helping some friends teach a workshop before following them on and off all the way to the West Coast months later. It was a 3 month bucket list trip – The Alien Throne, Sedona, Valley of Fire, Joshua Tree, Alabama Hills, The Ancient Bristlecone Forest, weeks in Utah, the Racetrack and Badwater Basin in Death Valley – just to name a few. By the end of 2022, I had spent almost 6 months living on the road on and off, and I was hooked.

And Now

Before this, I never had an opportunity to dive so deeply into my photography and spend such precious, intimate time at these treasured locations. By the end of the trip I knew that I wanted to capture and document the beautiful places of the world, bringing them back for everyone to enjoy though photos, video, timelapse, fine art and instruction. If you can’t find me, I’m probably parked somewhere with an amazing view