Taylor will go to great lengths to find beautiful mountains to photograph. His native Minnesota has some of the best forests and lakes in the world, but his heart is always more at home on a high ridgeline with views on all sides and a camera on his shoulder strap. Over the past 10 years Taylor went from saying “nah, backpacking is too intense for me,” to hiking the PCT in 2024 with an ultralight setup and a decidedly non-ultralight camera that earned him the trail name “Portrait.”

Over those 10 years he hiked the Superior Hiking Trail twice, Collegiate Loop, Laugavegur/Fimmvörðuháls Trails, Solitude Loop, Black Hills, Superstition Mountains, and Tour du Mont Blanc. Every trip he loves testing out new gear to see how it performs and why it performs well for these environments, a passion that stemmed from his 10 years in test engineering in the world of medical devices.

His love of photography nearly eclipses his love of backpacking and has been a staple in his life since he first borrowed a film camera when he was 10 to capture the winter of Minnesota’s north woods. Since then he fell in love with astrophotography, portraiture, and even dabbled in wedding photography. From photography it was an easy jump over to videography and visual effects. When he’s not in a climbing gym during the long but beautiful Minnesota winters, he makes gear reviews and trail videos from the enormous amount of footage he captures during his summer hikes.