From Cosplay to Colorado: How I Found My Why
What happens when the kind of photographer you thought you'd be… isn't the one you become? I didn't start out shooting wildlife — I started because I wanted to be a cosplay photographer. Back then, that was the whole plan.
Yoshi
For those of y'all just getting to know me, you probably wouldn't guess it, but I am the biggest nerd. Like, HUGE nerd. I spent most of my life playing video games — I even had a competitive all-female Overwatch team at one point. Being into gaming and all things nerdy, I was also the crafty type, as you might expect a photographer to be. I loved making cosplays of my favorite characters, and man, it was such a good time. I even won a costume competition for my very first one as Yoshi. Talk about being hyped up!
After pouring so much time and money into these outfits, I wanted some nice professional photos of myself actually wearing them. I didn't know anyone who could do that, and since I'd dabbled in photography when I was younger with a little point-and-shoot, I decided to just invest in my first big girl camera. I went with the Sony a6300, then dove headfirst into the 52 Frames project in 2019 — every week there's a new topic, you shoot it, submit, get feedback, and keep it moving. It pushed me to explore parts of photography I never would've touched on my own, and honestly, it was one of the best decisions I made. After that first year, I knew I was hooked. I traded in the a6300, went full frame with the Sony a7 III, and never looked back.
Ok, fast forward a bit. Covid hits, conventions shut down, and cosplay basically comes to a halt. Then in December 2021, I pack up and move across the country to Colorado. And honestly? That's where everything shifts. I start actually thriving out here. The hiking, the off-roading, the snowboarding — I'm all in. The mountains have this way of making you feel incredibly small, but in the best possible way. That's probably a whole post on its own.
Honestly, the wildlife piece probably shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. I've been obsessed with animals my whole life — I even went through a phase where I was dead set on becoming a veterinarian. That dream shifted, but the love for animals never did. So when Colorado put them right in front of my lens, something just clicked into place.
But the wildlife — oh man. I was ecstatic for it. And the more time I spent out there with my camera, the more I realized this wasn't just a hobby pivot. These animals have shared this planet with us forever. They were here before us, they'll fight to stay here after us, and most of them are doing that fight quietly — without anyone paying attention. That's what stopped me in my tracks. If you've ever just sat and really watched wildlife, I mean truly watched them, you start to notice they're not so different from us. Different quirks, different personalities, different ways of moving through the world — but at the core? Same thing. And something about that hit me hard. Photography already felt like storytelling, but wildlife photography felt like storytelling that mattered. Like I finally found the thing I was supposed to point my camera at.
That's the origin story. A nerdy gamer who just wanted cool cosplay photos somehow ended up knee-deep in the wilderness, camera in hand, trying to do right by the creatures that live there. Wildlife photography is my home base now — it's where my heart is — but the creative side never fully went away. I'm still open to portrait work that ties into cosplay or conceptual art, because honestly, the nerdy roots run deep and I'm not interested in pretending otherwise. This is who I am, this is how I got here, and I'm just getting started.
Here is a link to my 52 Frames photos I mentioned on my first year learning photography, which at the time, was posted on my Cosplay Facebook page. Be nice, we all start somewhere, and this was my very first year learning and shooting photography!
52 Frames now host their post on their own website, which is awesome!
