Photography has always been a fascination for me. Capturing images has at times played a larger role or a smaller role in my life, but it has always been a passion.  Photographs, particularly those in black & white, are the most moving of all art forms—probably because of the power they convey. And what an image conveys is so subjective. I have never understood more abstract forms of art very well and tend to think in more literal terms. People have always been my favorite subjects; going to the zoo has never been as interesting as sitting on a bench in a busy park or in the bleachers at a sporting event watching people. People are far more diverse than any other subject, and extracting the essence of a person is my top priority (unless there is some other specific result that we are looking for in a shoot). When in front of the camera, people always ask me, "What do you want me to do?" The answer has always been obvious to me: be yourself. Let that come across. We are looking for the essence of you.

I got my first camera when I was 7 years old. It was a Brownie box camera with a rather inferior lens, but the images were still captivating. About ten years later, a fortuitous meeting launched a serious pursuit of photography that has never ceased. It was then that I met a photojournalism grad student  who was a great mentor! During the course of that friendship, I received excellent photographic tutelage.  Later, I took some photographic and darkroom classes in the States and in Mexico. Those experiences really helped form my style in the darkroom and expand my love of black-and-white photography.  Ansel Adams and Fred Picker were a profound influence for my work during that period. In recent years, of course I've been working primarily with digital images instead of with film.  Film photography and darkroom print-making is a gratifying pursuit, but digital photography is much less time-consuming. The Canon 1D Mark III & 5D Mark II cameras I use are the most powerful digital SLR cameras available. It's a far cry from that first Brownie camera, but the images captivate me just as much now as they did then.

Photography is not my primary source of income, and that fact allows me flexibility in choosing subjects and locations in which to shoot. It also allows me the freedom to spend the time required to get the optimum results during each session. Studio shooting always allows for great artistic license & flexibility — especially because my studio is state-of-the-art.  Location shoots are more challenging, & are more common but perhaps rewarding. (Luckily, digital photography and post-production editing has made location shoots much less taxing than they were before digital.)

The art of photography continues to be a driving passion in my life, regardless of whether I'm capturing nature, architecture, people, or anything else. Taking a photograph of someone is an opportunity to exhibit their entire person in a print. It's amazing how vividly you can remember somebody just by seeing their image, personality, and character expressed all together in one photograph.

In my mind, that old adage that “a picture is worth a thousand words” could not be more true.

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