Joel Hanger was born in Olympia Washington in 1979 where he lived until the age of 14.

In the early years Joel obtained a camera from a garage sale that would be the spark to his love of photography.

In 1994 Joel moved with his family to Glendale Arizona where he lived until he was 20 years old.

Joel graduated from Glendale High School in 1998 and attended Glendale Community College from 1999-2000.

Joel excelled in diving, winning state championships his senior year, despite a broken hand.

Years of diving brought Joel a scholarship to Southern Illinois where he dived for 2 years, setting the conference record on the 3 meter diving board during his freshmen year.

All this time Joel's hobby was always photography. He enjoyed taking photographs in his spare time, as well as programming and expanding his skills with computer maintenance and photographic enhancements utilizing programs such as The Gimp, Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro.

Joel has won many awards in diving, and in photography. He is an established Certified MySQL Database Administrator and Experienced Wedding and Nature Photographer.