About

Before WWII, my father was a newspaper reporter/photographer.  After the war he re-enlisted and made the Army’s 10th Mountain Division his career.  We usually lived in or near ‘the great outdoors’.  We never stopped hunting, fishing, skiing and hiking.  All the while he recorded our family life with his camera.  His last duty station was Fort Ord in Monterey, California.

My dad (on the left)

Mt. Hood, Oregon, c1939

 

High school in Monterey offered many opportunities to practice the photography skills he had taught me.  Big Sur, Point Lobos, Laguna Seca, Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Cannery Row, to name the familiar, were all favorite destinations.

 

Me & family

Big Sur, 1965

 

During my military enlistment I was part of a team performing photo reconnaissance in the DMZ between North and South Korea.  A Major I worked with was an accomplished photographer.  Life Magazine had published his work on a couple of occasions.  He wanted the newest Nikon.  If I bought his current model, he would be my mentor on weekend outings to explore the Korean countryside.  What a deal!  His vision and technical skill fueled my interest and I saw and photographed Korea with new eyes.

 

Me

Korea, 1969

 

During the next 30 years I used photography as my father had – to document my family’s life and as a practical tool in business.  My life was so full I didn’t have the time to personally develop film, scan negatives, or dodge and burn prints.

 

My wife Pam & me

Lake Tahoe, 1974

 

My son Robin & me

Tempe, AZ, 1997

 

For 17 of those years, I was very busy building our cabin!

 

Dry Fitting Our Logs

Sisters, Oregon, 1992

 

A Dream Realized

Bear Valley, CA, 2003

 

In 2003 I acquired a Canon Digital Rebel.  It was my first move from film to digital capture. Over the next few years, I began acquiring the basic skills associated with the new digital technologies.  I was also acquiring a stable of Canon’s professional lenses while I waited for Canon to produce a full frame, 35mm sensor in a camera I could afford.

 

By 2007 my son, nieces and nephews were grown and on their own, scattered across the country.  Our families use of the cabin dropped precipitously. The cabin is at 7000 feet in the central Sierra Nevada Mountains of California.  The total annual snowfall is generally around 30 feet (47 feet fell in 2011). That results in a lot of maintenance!  With maintenance on the rise and labor on the fall, it was time to sell and move on.

 

A ‘Not Unusual’ Amount of Snow

Bear Valley, California, 1997

 

I retired from my professional career soon after selling the cabin.  Now I had a lot of time to concentrate on photography.  I bought my first photo printer – a Canon i9900 (still works like a champ), Photoshop, Lightroom, and an Apple MacPro.  My consumption of how-to books, on-line video training, and ‘in-the-wild’ photo classes began to result in noticeable improvements in my capture, rendering and printing skills.

 

Then the Canon 5DmkII came on the market!  I bought one.  I now had a pretty complete and robust tool box.  The new camera refueled my creative spirit and enhanced my devotion to photography.

 

My first 5-shot HDR photograph

Yosemite Valley NP, California, 2009

 

Recent trips to Yosemite and many countries in Europe, resulted in what I consider many artfully composed, and skillfully captured images. The robust development is ongoing. The images I have completed represent my best photography to date.  There are still a significant number of images waiting to move through my evolving image processing workflow.

 

But, now what?  As my inventory increases, what will I do with these images? Leaving them buried on a hard drive and stuck in a bunch of drawers seems like such a weak end to such energetic efforts.

 

I know I will continue to hone my printing skills – I just acquired an Epson Stylus Photo R3000 – my first pigment ink printer.  But, my walls are already saturated with art. I have no gallery relationships, nor do I have any public exposure/demand for my images.  What’s an aspiring photographer to do?

 

Then it came to me. If I create a website, it can be my gallery and allow me to ‘Share Results Globally’.  This will give my interest in honing my artistic and technical skills a new focus and voice.  Its a whole new career.  Building this site presents another major learning curve to climb!  It will be interesting to look back in five years and see how walking through this door of opportunity worked out…

 

The Red Door

Santorini, Greece, 2010