About Myself

Hi, my name's Kris.

This site is my little playground for trying out new web technologies, and a place to share a few things I love. That's really all it needs to be.

Here's more about me, though. I was born in San Antonio, Texas, which makes me unusual in my family since I was the first one born in the US. My parents were both born in Australia, and were part of the seventh generation of native born Australians (meaning my family's been there since about 1790). My parents came to the US so my Dad could work in the field he loved, and my older brother was born in Canada while my family was still making their way here. My dad did become a US citizen, and I'm a dual citizen between Australia and the US.

Growing up, I was lucky to travel a lot. Among other things, my dad was a pilot, and small planes were just a part of life. This is probably why I still feel most at home somewhere between the clouds. There's a moment, when you climb through the cloud cover and break into the blue above, where everything underneath disappears and the sun is just blazing. It doesn't matter what the weather is like down there. Up there, it's always a beautiful day that bursts upon you as you come out of the clouds. That never gets old for me.

One summer in fifth grade, I went to stay with my aunt and uncle in Western Samoa. I remember a lot about that trip, but what I remember most is the hotel atrium full of enormous fruit bats. They'd hang along the walls, calm as you like, and you could scratch their fuzzy tummies. They had the longest tongues which they would use to extract nectar and pulp from flowers and fruit. I think that trip is probably where my love of wildlife photography was born; the world is full of creatures that are strange and wonderful and deserve to be looked at closely. I'm always looking. Through a camera lens, through the pages of a book, through a small plane window.

My dad was a reader too, and a lover of poetry. He was the one who used to read me his favorite poems instead of bedtime stories, and some of them have never left me. He's gone now, but I keep a page on this site of poems that meant something to him, or to me, or to both of us. I hope a few of them find you the way they found me.

My mom is gone too, and I miss her every day as well. She was a very gracious woman, charming and kind and so very loving. She was the sort of person who reminded you of a Beatrix Potter character somehow made real. As I get older, I find I understand her more and more, and the bittersweet part of that is not being able to share it with her. Maybe she knows, though.

Let's see. What else? I share my life with my partner Rich, who I've been with since we met in college. We never wanted kids of our own, but we do have four special needs cats who have very much decided they run things around here. Life with him (and our cats) has gotten better and better over the years, and I don't take that lightly.

If you're looking for something to read, I've collected some favorite reads on the books page. And if you want to see the world through my eyes for a few minutes, my photo gallery is a good place to start. Most of them are animals. A few are places. All of them made me stop and stare.