Who Am I?

 

My name is Josh Root. I was born and raised in Anacortes, Washington. I got my first camera when I was eight and yes, I still have it. According to my mother, I made many nice images of people’s knees (I was a short child). I began to shoot photos more seriously when I reached high school.

 

 

 

As many do, I moved away for college and adventure. I spent some time living in the “big city”, and for a number of years I ran around shooting photos for corporate clients and various magazines. I did work for ESPN, GT Bicycles, Duffs shoes, Electronic Arts, Woodland Park Zoo, Disney, and others. But at some point, the adventures of “work” travel and the business end of freelance editorial photography becomes a little old. So happily, I find myself back living in my beloved hometown.

 

Living here again brings me back full circle in more ways than one. When I started shooting photos in the very beginning, the only people I had to shoot photos of were my friends and family. So I just made images of whatever we were up to that day/week/month. Developing these photos was like Christmas morning. Nothing was more amazing than getting to see what I moment I had been able to capture. And the best part was giving these photos to my friends as a memory of that time we had spent.

 

 

Then as time moved on, I started getting paid to shoot my photos. I got sent across the country, hung out with some famous people and was able to open magazines on the newsstand and see my images. It was wonderful, making money to do what you love is always a blessing, but it just wasn’t very fulfilling. Most of these pictures didn’t mean anything to anyone. They were around for one issue and then gone, never to be seen again. I started to think more and more about the joy that I felt from giving photos to my friends. And remembering how happy it made me to see one of my images hanging on the wall at someone’s house.

 

About this time, one of my good friends was getting married. And although I wasn’t the official photographer (because I was in the wedding), I brought along one of my small cameras and took candid photos of the whole day. As a wedding present, I printed up the images that I had taken and put them in a little album.

 

And that’s when I realized that this was what I wanted to do. It was everything that was missing from the work I had been doing.