About
I’ve had some type of a camera in my hands since my Junior High days. Early on I was mesmerized by the magic of the camera to capture that which excited me. I’ve created many different types of images over 40+ years of photographing. I’ve been inside of jet engines, taken aerials out of a helicopter at 14,000 feet, photographed high school seniors, done weddings, photographed buildings and processed and printed all types of films. My real passion to create, however, is reserved for nature’s landscapes, be they great and majestic or the fine detail of a rain forest floor. It is here that my gift for making images really shines!
There is a wonderful dynamic at work in the process of capturing the beauty of a snow clad Cascade volcano or the flowing waters of a clear mountain stream amidst the saturated greens of the surrounding rain forest. The intense reds and yellows of the vine maples and big leave maples in the fall contrast wonderfully with the soft pastel greens of Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar. I feel very privileged to live in the Pacific Northwest. It is here within the diverse beauty of this region that my soul and creativity sings out. I often remark to friends that it will take at least three lifetimes for me to photograph all of my newly adopted home; there is such a great wealth of images waiting for me to create.
The current state of photography is very exciting. I continue to be a film photographer during the creative process of image making. My current system of choice is an Arca Swiss 4 x 5 field view camera. I use various lenses to capture my vision on Fuji transparency film. All film is processed in a professional lab. To transform the analog image to digital I use a scanning process to capture all of the resolution and image information from my 4 x 5 transparency. I use Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom to bring the scanned image back to what I pre-visualized when I created it. The usual wet darkroom processes of dodging, burning, masking, contrast enhancement and color correction is now performed digitally.
Unfortunately, there is much gnashing of teeth about supposedly bad and improper digital manipulation. Photographers have been manipulating their images since the original Camera Obscura! A very famous photograph by the late Ansel Adams is “Moonrise Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941.” He only had a couple of minutes to set up his 8 x 10 view camera, set the lens and filter and press the shutter release. He actually ran out of time and was only able to expose one sheet of film that was under exposed. The B&W negative was greatly manipulated in the darkroom by Ansel in order to fully present the pre-visualization he had when he raced up in his car and saw the scene.
All photography and most art in general, is a departure from reality. Reality is what the human brain perceives from the analog image provided by our eyes and optic nerves. All art is in the eye of the beholder. If but one person receives joy from viewing my images then I have been successful!
You can view my images here gallery .