I began my career as a photographer in 1990. Through a grant from the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and under the direction of writer Robert Coles, I photographed the Orozcos, a family of Mexican migrant farm workers, throughout their travels harvesting the crops of the southeastern United States. In 1991 I was awarded a Lyndhurst Foundation Young Career Prize for this work.

With support from the Tennessee Humanities Council grant in 1993, I continued my study of the human relationship to the landscape by producing a photography and oral history installation entitled "Before the Flood – Watauga Recollection" that explored the history of the Watauga River Valley in Tennessee and its subsequent inundation by the Tennessee Valley Authority. I directed this multimedia project while serving as an artist-in-residence in at Applshop, Inc., a media-arts cooperative in Whitesburg, Kentucky. The exhibit premiered at the National Folk Festival. In 1994 I was awarded an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council for Photographs describing Eastern Kentuckians' connection to the land.

This work led to a brief career as a journalist. I was a reporter for the Mountain Eagle, a local paper that is a past winner of the Helen Thomas and Elijah Lovejoy Award for journalism. I covered the South Mountain Mine disaster for Morning Edition and All Things Considered on National Public Radio.

From 1998-2000, I served as an oral historian for "Indivisible: Stories of American Communities" directed by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and funded through a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts. The installation toured nationally at sites including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson.

Gradually I distanced myself from the documentary tradition and the journalistic practice. Even though my artistic subject matter – the relationship of people to the landscape – became my beat, my own imagination was stifled by the journalistic realm of the documentary practice.

I received my MFA from Yale in 2001 when I was awarded the Sakier Prize for excellence in Photography. In 2002 I was included in Seduire/Seduce a French publication, and New York exhibition by Coramandel Press with Nan Goldin, Andres Serrano, Catherine Opie, and others. A New York solo debut took place soon thereafter at One Front Gallery. In 2003, I installed and exhibition entitled "Zoolatry" at Wallspace Gallery in New York. My most recent exhibition of note was installed at Karyn Lovegrove gallery in Los Angeles in April of 2006 which received a positive review in the Los Angeles Times. In September of this year I was a awarded a North Carolina Arts Fellowship.

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