I've never thought of myself as a photojournalist, but it seems to be my thing this year. The professional photographers of America (PPA) contacted me after their annual competition in the fall of 2021. They wanted to enter one of my contest images into the 2022 World Photographic Cup (WPC) and asked me if I would like to be on their Team USA. The image they selected was a photograph of two fighting wild horses I had titled. "This Ain't No Horseplay". Fast forward to May 2022 - I was awarded a gold medal at the ceremony in Rome, Italy, helping the American team tie Mexico for the World Photographic Cup which was awarded to both countries for the first time since the WPC's inception. The winning image was entered in the Reportage category. Reportage is a fancy name for photojournalism and I was being recognized as a photojournalist. Fast forward again to October of this year. I sat down to relax one Saturday night and received a message from someone at Utah Senator Mike Lee's campaign. He said the senator wanted him to reach out to me about photographing the final weeks leading up to the midterm elections. After some negotiation and discussion about scheduling concerns I accepted the job. How could I not, it was a great opportunity, and now I find myself an official photojournalist. Although I have not left the work that I've always done and still love to do, I'm enjoying this new hat. Photojournalism is very challenging. You have to be constantly aware of what is going on and anticipating opportunities for storytelling photographs. Everything is on the fly and you have to be ready to change on a dime. It can be very exciting and frustrating, but it's fun to do. I've found myself with the chance to listen to people who are on America's political stage which fascinates and inspires me. Reportage has just become another hat to go along with my portrait, Santa, and landscape hats! All that really matters is I'm having a blast creating images for my clients and photojournalism has just become another way to do it.

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