My Career in Photographing Law Enforcement

Since the beginning of my photography career as an Air Force Still Photographic Specialist in 1991, I’ve worked with law enforcement in many different capacities. In every instance, I’ve been privileged to work with or alongside the men and women in uniform, providing quality professional photography for their official needs.

I got my start as an Air Force photographer with the Combat Camera Unit, Detachment 5, stationed at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. Every month, I was assigned a pager and spent a week on call as the base’s go-to photographer. It didn’t matter what time it was — and it always seemed to be the middle of the night — but when I got paged, I needed to get to base fast. From crime scenes, suicide scenes, and car accidents to plane crashes, fires, autopsies, and personal injuries, there was never a dull moment. My job was to document, and I did it with professionalism.

With my many years of working in commercial photography, I’m now working with law enforcement once again, in several different capacities. After starting my business in 2017, I began working with companies that make products for law enforcement. I also work directly with police departments, photographing portraits and department photos. Given my military background and years of experience working with law enforcement, I’m able to provide local police departments with dependable, professional photography services.

I began working with companies that make products for law enforcement.

In 2020 and 2022, I had the privilege of being hired by Ocean Technology Systems (OTS) to photograph their product in action. We met the Tulare County Sheriff’s Department dive team at Lake Kaweah Reservoir in Tulare County, California, where I photographed the OTS communication system in a “real-world” dive scenario: divers were directed by onshore teams to locate crime evidence that had been discarded in the lake. Each time, the divers used underwater search techniques to find the weapon while staying in constant communication with the team onshore. My job was to photograph the teams in action as they used the OTS communication systems.

In 2023, while doing a shoot for a local building management company, I had the chance to meet Tip Tiphayachan, a former police officer and now owner of Victory Tactical Gear, based out of San Ramon, California. Tip and I talked back and forth for a few months after our first meeting, and in April 2024, we did our first photo shoot together with the Gilroy S.W.A.T. Team.

For this shoot, the goal was to photograph Tip’s new ballistic shield in use by both S.W.A.T. and uniformed street officers. Our first shots were inside a parking garage, which made it possible to get creative with the lighting, using colored gels to emulate the lights you might see at an actual on-scene incident. The next shots were the hardest to light and compose: three S.W.A.T. team members inside a Bearcat, holding the ballistic shield, looking ready to go.

Since our first photoshoot, I’ve had the privilege of working with Tip on many other lifestyle photoshoots with S.W.A.T. teams in multiple cities across the Bay Area and Southern California, all to show the real-world use of the tactical protective gear Tip’s company offers its clients. See how the photography is used at: https://victorytacticalgear.com/

I’m also very proud to work with local law enforcement agencies in other capacities, providing high-quality portraiture for their employees and officers, along with coordinating and helping plan Department Group Photo Days for entire departments. All of these shoots are important to get right, because the goal is to photograph the department efficiently and in a timely manner, so officers can get back out on the streets to protect the public.

More recently, I was asked to photograph lifestyle portraits of officers for recruitment purposes. I was excited for the opportunity to work with an agency to create imagery that would generate interest and excitement in joining its department. This lifestyle photoshoot was more fun, and it was great to provide the same professional service for a different purpose.

I’m very proud to have worked with so many people across different areas of law enforcement, and I hope to continue my partnerships with the agencies and businesses that make innovative products serving law enforcement well. Please get in touch if your business or organization would like to work with me. I’m just an email away!