At 29, I took a seasonal job as a videographer for a national dance competition. I'd never cared about dance — not even a little. Within the first week, it hit me like a freight train. I didn't just want to film it. I wanted to do it.

So I started private ballet lessons and kept at them for a year and a half. Then I got honest with myself: if I was going to pursue this seriously, starting that late, I had to live inside it. I cold-called over a hundred dance studios. That's how I found Pryntsev Ballet Academy, where I began volunteering in exchange for classes, and where I made one of my closest friends. This December will be my second year dancing Drosselmeyer in their Nutcracker. Along the way, other studios started hiring me to shoot their recitals and in-studio sessions across Orange County and the Inland Empire, and those became real relationships.

Dance is where all my time and attention goes now. I'm a full-time dance major at Orange Coast College, training 20-plus hours a week, with every intention of dancing professionally. I believe God is calling me to dance, and everything I do — on stage or behind the camera — is meant to bring Him glory.

That's what you get when you hire Adage Dance Media: someone who's been on both sides of the lens. I know what the top of a jump looks like because I'm chasing it myself.