The Long Version

One might wonder how a kid from Brooklyn became so deeply drawn to the oceans, but a childhood of long days in the waters off Coney Island and countless hours staring through aquarium glass instilled in me a feeling of belonging unparalleled in the terrestrial world.  Learning to scuba dive at the age of ten, I immersed myself in the increasingly familiar world of the ocean, one in steep decline and with a voice inadequate to garner the attention necessary for its protection. 

As an adolescent, I attended the New York Harbor school, a public high school on Governors Island that partners with the Billion Oyster Project to provide students with the tools necessary to devote their lives to improving the environment around them.  I gained a much more intimate knowledge of New York Harbor and earned my Scientific Diving license (through the only high school program sponsored by the American Academy of  Underwater Sciences). 

While leading the Billion Oyster Project's diving operations, over hundreds of dives, to install and maintain artificial oyster reefs around New York, we began to restore the city's native oyster populations, returning diversity to the local ecosystem and, through oyster reefs' natural wave and flood attenuation, helped fortify the city against future storms.

My transition to Boston to continue my education in Northeastern University's Marine Biology program was another step in my commitment to bettering the conditions of our oceans. While conducting research in Dr. Justin Ries' lab for carbonate biogeochemistry, I also continued to hone my photographic skills above and below the surface.  Although I have always had a camera in-hand to capture the natural world, my increasing depth of both academic and experiential knowledge of the environment has allowed me to better capture the beauty of the ecosystems I want to protect.

In the spring of 2019, I began the Three Seas Program as a member of its 38th class, taking graduate-level marine biology field courses at Northeastern's Marine Science Center. After spending the summer at the labs photographing local marine species for the Ocean Genome Legacy, I visited the kelp forests of Northern Vancouver Island, British Columbia before traveling to the University of Washington's Friday Harbor Labs in Washington State and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Bocas del Toro, Panama for the second semester of the program. I then returned to Northeastern's Boston campus to complete my final semester, graduating in May of 2020.

I returned to New York City later that summer and spent the rest of the year working as a deckhand on the Sailing Vessel Shearwater, a 90ft schooner, running tours of New York Harbor and educating passengers about the ecological history of the waterway. During the spring of 2021 I embarked on a three month trip across the U.S., sleeping in my converted station wagon and winding my way through the staggering beauty of the Southwest.

In the spring of 2022, I moved to the UK to complete a Master’s in Directing and Producing Science and Natural History at the National Film and Television School.  Over the next two years, I directed, produced, shot, and edited two documentary shorts, ‘Vanishing Oasis’ and ‘Against the Herd’, of ten and twenty-five minutes, about the Great Salt Lake in Utah and Cottonwood Ranch in Northern Nevada.

Vanishing Oasis has so far been screened at more than a dozen festivals on 3 continents, took first place in the 2023 Yale Environment 360 Film Contest, and has recently become part of Earthjustice’s legal campaign against Utah’s state government to save the Great Salt Lake.

Against the Herd was completed just before my graduation from NFTS in March of 2024 and is starting to make its way out into the world. I’m continuously working to get the film in front of someone who has the authority to step in and ensure that the Smith family can continue caring for the land they love. Please reach out if you know someone who fits that description and we can make sure they see it!

I’m currently back in Brooklyn developing stories that can inspire more harmonious, reciprocal relationships with the ecosystems that surround us (and of course looking for funding to make them happen). If you have a story that needs telling or a team that needs joining, drop me a line and let's make it happen!