About

This dot in the cloud is for my pictures. Hosted on a Virtual Server running self installed LAMP stack and X3 Gallery software. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy!

I started taking pictures at age 12. My parents got me started with a Yashica Electro 35 GSN rangefinder.. My older brother and I built a darkroom in my bedroom closet and the hardwood floor is forever stained purple with fixer. As my enthusiasm grew I used paper route money for a black bodied Olympus OM1. If it was good enough for National Geographic staff it was good for me. Awesome camera that I put to use on summer trips to the Rockies and taking weird pictures around the house and neighborhood. I joined the Yearbook team and took photo class in High School with Roger Pfingsten. Got a picture published in our hometown paper, below the fold on the front page. I spent time in the closet.

From there I came back into photography when I enrolled in the Indiana University Fine Arts Photography program under the guidance of professors Reg Heron and Jeffrey Wolin. I furthered my preocessing and printing skills under their tutelage, learned compositon and art history. While in School I picked up Olympus OM3 and OM4 cameras with a fine assortment of lenses and flashes. I spent a lot of time in the art school basement with their newly acquired color drum printer and a lot of time blasting my dual head Olympus T45 flash that could shut off street lights. I'm not sure my mother understood why 16x20 sheets of Kodak color paper cost as much as books for my brothers engineering school, but she approved. From there I moved to the big city with my freshly minted BFA degree - and promptly discovered I probably should have gone to business school.

I landed at Gamma Photo labs for two years working with some masterful visual inspection film developers and working to keep my Refrema E6 sheet film rig clean and running smooth with the chemicals I mixed in 40 gallon barrels two floors above while dressed like a Hazmat technician. A crazy mix of MFA photogrpahers, old time craftsmen and folks who just neeeed a steady gig - all working to process and print Chicago's top photogrpahers. I then landed a nice gig - photo assistant at the world renown architectural photography firm of Hedrich Blessing. We traveled all over the country learning advanced lighting, composition and how to work with clients. An amazing place with highly skilled craftsmen behind the lens, in the darkroom and retouching room. I worked with view cameras, medium format, 35mm, flew in helicopters and hung off buildings in mid town Manhattan - more about my Hedrich Blessing experience here. In my free time I was shooting on the street and at bicycle races. I made a major move from Olympus to Nikon gear solely because the Nikon had a 1/250th flash sync and the Olympus only 1/60. I still miss my Olmypus OM4 with the f1.2 50mm prime lens, best camera ever. I was also shifting in life by starting a family with my wonderful wife Nancy.

After two years at Hedrich Blessing where the future was slim pickings due to the early 90's recession I moved onto my first "real" job. A Mac based communications firm put a kleig light on me during the interview and made me answer yes to "can you operate a dos prompt!". I've been twidling DOS prompts every since but still keeping the flame alive. I went full digital in 2004 with a Nikon D70. Recently my full time rig fits in my pocket - the Nokia Lumia 1020 43meg / DNG capable Camerphone. I'm still snapping away and still loving it.

Olympus camera collection...