Nobody asked me to do this.

That's probably the part of the story people get wrong most often. There was no commission, no grant, no church leader who pulled me aside and said, "You should photograph the life of Jesus Christ." I was a commercial photographer in Mesa, Arizona. Shooting advertising, weddings, whatever paid. And one day I walked into a room and said, "I think I should do this."

It was 2007, and in the world of Christian art, painting was king. When I pitched the idea of a large-scale photographic series depicting the life of Christ, people tilted their heads at me. Photography? Of Jesus? But I believed something that I still believe today: photography is the native language of the last several generations of humans. We think in photographs. We feel in photographs. And if I could create images of Christ that felt less like artifacts and more like memories, present, human, and near, something important could happen.

Angels on a Trampoline

My first scene was the angels announcing the birth of Jesus. We were in a studio with models bouncing on a trampoline to get that feeling of weightlessness. The images were retouched by Robb Carr, a world-renowned artist whose credits include Michael Jackson's Thriller album cover. When I finally had something to show people, the skepticism started to fade. They could see it. Christian art photography wasn't just possible. It was powerful.

That project became Reflections of Christ.

The Night Everything Changed

The first public gallery opened in Mesa, Arizona. Seven hundred people showed up on night one. Over the next six months, hundreds of thousands followed. Cameron Trejo produced a behind-the-scenes documentary that went viral, and suddenly my face was everywhere. My life changed overnight.

There's an irony in that. My commercial photography career took a hit because I became known only for Reflections of Christ. But looking back, I wouldn't trade it. The images have now been viewed hundreds of millions of times online. They've been exhibited around the world. A book was published. And more importantly, I started hearing from people, total strangers, who told me that one of my images made them see Jesus differently. Not as a figure in a stained-glass window, but as someone real. Someone close.

That's what I'd wanted all along: realistic pictures of Jesus that make you feel like He's in the room with you.

Why This Art Matters Now

When I started Reflections of Christ, almost nobody was using photography to depict the life of Jesus at this scale. Painting was the tradition. Photography felt like an outsider move. Now the conversation has opened up, and I think that's a good thing.

To me, modern Christian art presents a Jesus who is uniquely in the eye of the beholder. Artists are preachers, and we preach from our own experience with Jesus. That's what makes this work different from illustration or decoration. I'm not trying to paint a historical scene. I'm trying to create an encounter.

Right now, I'm getting the itch to create again. I'm working with painters and multimedia artists to tell the stories of Jesus that I love, and what's coming next is something much more visually bold. More multimedia. More alive.

Life in Franklin

My wife Tara and I are from Arizona originally. A few years ago, we felt drawn to Franklin, Tennessee, and we followed that feeling. Our daughter Ava is pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter in Nashville, and the rest of the family (our sons Marky and Bo, their wives Mollie and Brielle, our youngest Canon, and our granddaughter Magnolia) are the center of everything.

Being an artist lends itself to fatherhood and grandfatherhood in ways people don't expect. I have time to really be with my kids. I'm not commuting. I'm not punching a clock. I'm making art, and most nights I'm eating one of Tara's gourmet meals around a table in our sunroom that has become a sacred gathering place for friends and family.

What I Hope Happens

When someone finds my work for the first time, maybe they Googled something, maybe a friend shared Walking on Water on Instagram, I don't think first about the sale. I think about what happens inside that person.

I hope they can't get the image out of their head because it made them feel something real. I hope they associate the person who showed it to them with a follower of Jesus. And most of all, I hope it changes their relationships. With the people around them, and with Christ Himself.

That's why I'm still doing this. That's why I'll keep doing this.

If you're here for the first time, I'm glad you found me. Take a look around. The art speaks for itself, but if you want to talk, I'm not hard to find.