Ben here.

I'll try to keep this short and sweet. Well, at least sweet. I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. I did not start playing with my daddy's brownie camera as a young child. I didn’t actually start playing with photography at all until 20 years later. Back to childhood: I grew up a loner with a love for Star Wars, Heavy Metal music and a creative imagination. As an only child, a creative imagination can go a long way—especially for photography.

A dislike for school led me to drop out of high school and begin a routine life working at auto parts hell, I mean AutoZone! After a few years of meeting the right people, I attended the University of Texas @ El Paso. This is where I found my interest for photography. I began playing with a camera in Spring of 2000 after meeting my first photography mentor, a creative writer—go figure. After a few years of experimenting and mimicking the photographers at the El Paso Times, I felt I was ready to start work at the university newspaper, The Prospector

In 2004, I did my first internship at the now closed Cincinnati Post.

There I met two photographers who helped me grow as a newspaper photographer, Bryan Moss and Melvin Grier.

The following year, I had decided to stay in El Paso for the summer, but after receiving a call from the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky area, I found myself driving 24 hours (not non-stop) back to Cincy to work
on a website project called KY Post Preps. The website was dedicated
to Northern Kentucky high school football. There, with the help of Bryan Moss and Ken Harper, I taught myself how to shoot and produce multimedia stories for the web.

In 2005, I grounded myself back home with work, school, family and friends. Lame. I know, but I have no regrets. A year later, I graduated from UTEP with a degree in Print Media and a minor in
Philosophy, AND a job waiting for me at the Spanish-Language daily newspaper Al Dia - published by the Dallas Morning News.

In fall of 2008, I was one of the many journalists across the nation who fell victim to the dying print industry and was laid off. I currently am a freelance photographer based in Dallas, TX who would love to shoot for you.