Hey, I’m Dallas!
I am super stoked you're here. I wish I could say my photography story was simple, but it's truly a lifelong journey of failures, successes, and a whole lot of experiments! I grew up in coastal Virginia and originally found photography through my moms love of it. She bought me “my” first camera at Walgreens after trying to use her nicer cameras all the time. It was a simple square digital camera and I made magic with the 1 megapixel it boasted in its photos. I then discovered an online based editing software called Picnik. By this time I was ready to take Myspace by storm with my awesome self portraits and photos of friends.
I had a great art teacher in high school who taught me so many of the photography basics that I still use today. We had very different styles at the time as I was going through my “pop punk emo" stage while she was more of a classic portrait and landscape photographer. Even if we didn't always have the same “eye” for photography, I realize now that I was lucky to learn so many skills that I still use today. I grew in my photography and eventually became the head photographer for my High School yearbook. I guess you could say this was my first published work, haha.
For the next 5 or so years, I would very casually continue to take photos with whatever camera I had at the time. Whether it be a phone, my moms old film camera, or the Canon rebel DSLR I upgraded to in high school, I was still regularly taking photos. I got my first glimpse of what it could be like to be a “real photographer” when I was asked to take some photos for the media manager at my job. I worked at a gorgeous 175 acre botanical garden so I had quite the job ahead of me. Through that process I also ended up taking pictures of friends for social media and for fun. This time was when I felt I really narrowed in on a lot of my current day style of photography.
In the summer of 2015 I met Megan. She is my wife now, but back then we were just dating and getting to know each other. We bonded quickly and I ended up joining her and her family on a trip to Hawaii only 3 weeks after meeting her for the first time (a story for another day). One of the things that first brought us together was the hobby of photography. We both loved taking photos and it quickly became a way for us to be creative together. Megans mother gifted us a really cool experience of a photo workshop in Washington DC where we learned the more nitty gritty sides of photography. This workshop really pushed us both creatively and mentally. One year later, we got engaged. Soon after we were married and launched our photography business Megan & Dallas Photography. We were officially “professional” photographers.
While we mostly focused on shooting portraits and wedding photography, Megan surprised me with a WILD gift for my birthday, the Go Pro Karma Drone. All of the sudden I had a camera that could … FLY! I fell in love with all the new unique angles and shots I could get. It really expounded my ideas of what I thought possible for photos. It was a little bit later that I sold the first license to one of my drone photos. It's still to this day the most money I have ever made for a single photo. 5 drones later and I still keep up with drones to this day. I am even a commercially licensed drone pilot through Part 107 with the FAA. Still one of my favorite ways to capture images.
Then came the year we all remember, 2020. The pandemic closed down our growing photography business and we had an amazing opportunity to move to Oahu, Hawaii. We took the leap of faith and landed here with 4 suitcases, our dog, and like 9,000 dollars to our name. Since we had a couple thousand to our name (which I figured was plenty at the time haha) I decided to rekindle my love with one of the most expensive photo mediums known to man kind, film. I have always loved the tactical feeling of film. The way it looks, the wonder of hoping the shot you got was what you envisioned, and the thrill of getting the negatives or scans sent to your email. I was enamoured all over again.
