When I first chose the name Flyball Is Art, I thought I was making a statement about a sport.
Over time, I realized I was really describing my own journey.
I began photographing flyball because I was captivated by its speed, energy, and athleticism. But the longer I spent behind the camera, the more my attention shifted. I found myself drawn to the quiet moments surrounding the competition—a glance of anticipation, a reassuring touch, shared focus, quiet celebration, and the unmistakable trust between a person and their dog.
Those moments revealed something I hadn't fully understood before.
The photographs were never really about flyball.
They were about relationship.
Looking back, I can see that flyball became the place where I learned to recognize the extraordinary beauty of the human–canine bond. The sport gave me a way to see something much larger than itself.
Today, my work has expanded beyond flyball to include other canine sports and environmental portraits, but the subject has never changed. Whether on a flyball lane, an agility course, a hiking trail, or in the quiet familiarity of home, I am drawn to the same thing: the trust, joy, devotion, and companionship that exist between people and their dogs.
That is the story I hope my photographs tell.
The title Flyball Is Art remains because it honors where this journey began. It reminds me that art is not something we impose on the world—it is something we learn to recognize when we pay close enough attention.
"Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
— Rainer Maria Rilke
— Rainer Maria Rilke
That quotation has come to mean a great deal to me. I didn't begin this project knowing exactly what I wanted to say. The photographs themselves became part of the journey, slowly revealing the ideas that had been there all along.
Flyball taught me to see.
My hope is that these photographs might help others see a little differently as well.