I started with a camera, stopping motion to tell stories with the click of a shutter.
Now I use whatever medium works best — written words, video or stills — to share the stories of my community.
CLOSE Gumercindo Minaya thinks flowers are a waste of time - you can't eat them. So when he turned his daughter's yard into a massive garden, he didn't plant marigolds or roses. He planted corn. Rows of the tall stalks now fill the backyard of her corner lot on Madison Avenue in York.
CLOSE Bill Kohler placed the crossbow in front of his 10-year-old son. "All right, heartbreaker, are you ready?" Kohler asked him. "Aim small, miss small." The blond boy lined up his shot, his arm wobbling slightly as he steadied it against his chair. He took one breath. Then he squeezed the trigger.
CLOSE It was picture day for Angela Diaz's youngest daughter, Lydia. Curls, that was the hairstyle they'd settled on. But Diaz's hands refused to cooperate. She thought she'd broken her wrist - the pain was that bad. She willed her fingers and hands to operate as they're supposed to, but they refused.
CLOSE The woods were asleep. But the two hunters huddled in the small blind were wide awake and watching. They settled in plastic lawn chairs, quietly filling the space in familiar, comfortable movements. Whispers broke the silence as Cheryl Howell and her granddaughter, Taylor, stared out windows on opposite sides of the tiny hut on stilts.
CLOSE Rodney Markle made a bad decision. It was dark and cold, the first frost of the year, when he and his son hiked to their tree stands to hunt for deer in Jackson Township. Josh Markle's stand was ready to go. But Rodney Markle was using a friend's stand, and it was missing safety equipment.
CLOSE If you walk into a gas station dressed like a cowboy straight out of a Tombstone movie, you'll get some funny looks. Glenn Hummell has experienced that firsthand, more than once.
CLOSE It happened slowly. Chris Doemland was busy. He worked long hours and had two young children with his wife, Erin. He didn't notice as one extra pound turned to five pounds, then 20, then more. As his weight crept up, his energy level dropped.
Sheila Beichner's failing kidney would soon kill her. A chance friendship saved her life. The clock is ticking. That's the news Sheila Beichner received from her doctor last year. Her chronic kidney disease was in stage four and progressing. Without a kidney transplant or dialysis she'd be dead in a year.
CLOSE Peggy Cox was supposed to stop cooking for the Alwood family Thanksgiving last year. That's one of the rules - you retire at 65. But there was one missed year when she was sick, so Cox was still running around the crowded, toasty kitchen at age 66 this year.