My photographic journey began when I was eight years old with an ancient folding camera my grandmother handed down to me. I processed the film in the bathroom sink at night and made contact prints to show family and friends. Later on in high school I worked on the yearbook and had a part time job at the local weekly newspaper. I saved money from mowing grass and shoveling the neighbors walks and finally was able to purchase a decent 35mm camera from the local camera/barber shop (I kid you not). If I remember correctly it was a Minolta SRT101 with a f1.4 lens.

Times sure have changed. That first camera cost about $100. It had basic settings and a built in meter. My current camera, which cost at least 20X as much, has an amazing array of settings and capabilities. While I kind of miss the thrill of watching the image come up slowly as you agitate a print in the “soup”, I find the ability to see the shot right in the camera very helpful. Even at that there still is a lot of “darkroom” stuff to do, it just gets done on the computer and I can do it from my recliner.

Finally we get to printing, which takes a lot of focus. What we see in the real world has a wide range of light and dark that even the best quality printer paper is unable to fully reproduce. That’s where it becomes art – finding ways to make squeeze the dynamic range of lighting in the real world into the capabilities of printer paper, making what you see resemble what I saw when I was standing there with the viewfinder pressed to my eye. All my work is hand printed using highest quality materials and non fading ink that will last several life times.

If you have questions or would like to make comments, please feel free to use the form below to send me a message.