BIOGRAPHY

The Full Story

I picked up my first camera while in high school which was an old Minolta 35mm.  I remember wasting roll after roll of film and never getting the right picture. There was too much light, blurriness and so forth. So for an extracurricular class,  I took Photography and even learned how to process the film in a dark room.  The class was fun and great; however, my first passion was architecture. So after a couple photography classes I moved on to other interests, but I never put down the camera.

Once during high school and a couple times during college  I was published for my landscaping photography. During college and while living in Sante Fe, NM, I stopped taking pictures and never picked the camera up again. Family and career became the prime focus of my life.

After moving back to California and becoming retired from my previous career,  I thought it was a good time to re-invent myself.  

I take my camera everywhere with me. It is not just the picture I take when I look through the eyepiece. I will also take a few pictures that surround my subject. These are never meant to be seen by the public but are for me as a reference for when I edit my photographs and frame each piece.  I use a variety of papers based on what I feel that best represents the location.  The frame also makes a statement about the feeling of the location.

Due to a bet, (more of a dare), I started taking pictures of humans.  This was something new to me since people talk and they move. Bridges and buildings are so much easier to work with!  At first, I paid a few people to stand in front of the camera and worked with them and then edited their pictures. I even started an Instagram account just for the human models.  Then it took off like wildfire, and I have people contacting me wanting new pictures taken and they are even paying me!  I have people as far as New York wanting me to shoot their pictures.

After moving back to my home state,  I realized that the areas I used to play in as child are gone.  Even some of the old bridges have been replaced by new ones.  The old ones had character and style.  The most important thing about taking pictures is that we can always look at them and remember something remarkable about that area. Hopefully it will be a happy memory.