About Me
My dad introduced me to photography when I was quite young. Starting with a Kodak instamatic, and graduating to his hand me down cameras we'd go off to the same places and take the same pictures every year.
Through the years, as I moved from Kodak, to Yashica, Pentax, Nikon, Sinar, and on to digital with Canon, then Fuji, photography has been a constant in my life. The blend of technical and artistic challenge appeals to me.
Nature is a clear attraction. Trees, with their complex lines and water with its wide range of colour and form are favourite themes. Added to that are my children who are the same but vastly different every year.
Photography is a link to my past, an engaging activity for the present, and a repository of memories for the future.
People, far more eloquent than I, have written about photography since its inception. Here are some quotes from famous photographers that resonate with me.
Lawrence Pilch
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“The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.”
— Dorothea Lange, Los Angeles Times, August 13, 1978
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“And if you can find out something about the laws of your own growth and vision as well as those of photography you may be able to relate the two, create an object that has a life of its own, which transcends craftsmanship. That is a long road, and because it must be your own road nobody can teach it to you or find it for you. There are no shortcuts, no rules.”
— Paul Strand, from an address delivered at the Clarence White School of Photography, Greenwich Village, New York, 1923
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“But I would never apologize for photographing rocks. Rocks can be very beautiful. But, yes, people have asked why I don’t put people into my pictures of the natural scene. I respond, 'There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.' That usually doesn’t go over at all.”
— Ansel Adams, interview with David Sheff, March 1983
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