A Guide To Life

Welcome to Pierce

As a photographer and a filmmaker, I've spent years trying to cut through the noise and grapple with an ever-changing social media landscape. Finding a place in it all is hard but trying to share things with integrity while walking across Mark Zuckerberg's political tight-rope is a game I grow more bored of by the minute.

It is a fruitless pursuit, and not a noble one.

River guides Keith Jardine (left) and Violette Roe (right) prepping for a scenic float on the Snake River in Grand Teton.

The heart and soul of all of my work stems from a desire to connect with and serve others. Every piece of content (a word which I very strongly resent) is built to serve a narrative. I come from a long line of veterans, teachers, and public administrators so service runs through me as easy as water and this project, Pierce, is my way of honoring that legacy. Named for my Grandmother, Pierce cuts through the noise, and shares what matters. And I've found what matters, to me, is tucked away in the mountains and the rivers and the forests. It’s in the people who call those places home — the guides.

Amateur fishing guide, Issac Heilman, enjoying the quiet, uncrowded banks of Pacific Creek.

The guides who live and breathe the backcountry wilderness. The ones who take us down pristine, uncharted powder slopes as if it was their backyard. The ones who wake up every day, face down the elements, and put their bodies and minds on the line to give us a taste of something real beyond the glass screen that we so often use to define our world and ourselves. They teach us how to unveil the scharade.

And unlike the rest of us, guides are not in it for the likes, money or fame. These "drifters", usually traveling from place to place to find their corner of happiness, understand the meaning of life in a way most can no longer appreciate. Out there, in the wild and on the road they tap into a primal truth that has all but vanished from our plastic, pre-packaged lifestyles. It's a truth they own that money can't buy, a wisdom that comes from living life to its fullest.

Crossing Crystal Creek with Shoal Creek Outfitters, July 2024

For those drifters, it’s a gift that comes freely from the wilderness they call home. They understand that to truly live is to embrace the unknown, damn the risks.

And they risk death for the passion of living. That is worth sharing.

This publication is for them.

Welcome to Pierce