While I work both with black and white and color images, I really love B&W. B&W allows me to focus on form and tone in those images where the colors are not essential.
I use a Canon Pro-10 printer for pigment based archival prints on Hahnemuhle Fine Art papers.
I was raised in Seattle, Washington and currently live in Port Townsend. I am currently retired and spend my time working on photography.
My main interests (besides photography) are reading, hiking, and ham radio.
Biographic Stuff
In 5th grade, an uncle set me up with my first darkroom and gave me an Argus C-3 (a 35mm rangefinder). I had a couple of old box cameras before that, but the Argus was my first camera that had settings. I took a year of photography in high school.
I got a degree in Geology at the University of Washington and returned in 1972 for a degree in Chemistry. I ended up spending my student loan on art supplies and dropping out. In 1973, I had a show of some of abstract expressionist acrylics in an off-Pioneer Square gallery. In 1972-74, I displayed photography and paintings at several Seattle businesses.
In the early ’80’s, I took two years of welding sculpture at South Seattle Community College. I then cast bronze at the foundry at Pratt Fine Arts, working with Louise McDowell. For a year or so, I was Louise’s technical assistant. When I showed the photos I took of bronze pours, I had requests from artists at Pratt to do their portfolio photography. For several years, I supplemented my income with portfolio work.
For a steady income, I worked in student transportation. I started out as a school bus driver in 1977 and retired in 2016 as the Director of Student Transportation at OSPI.
While working, my art was mostly photography, while I read extensively in technique and history. I was particularly influenced by Ira Spring, Galen Rowell, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
Since I retired in 2016, I have refined my digital post-processing techniques through Lynda.com training, where my favorite instructors were Ben Long, Justin Reznick, Chris Orwig and Konrad Eek.