Who is this guy, anyhow?

I have been photographing since childhood, as this old picture from 1964 illustrates. However, I kept trying to do things with my cameras they could not do, especially close-ups, so my interest didn't really take-off until 1971 when I got my first 35mm SLR camera. In the first three years of explosive activity I hardly ever photographed anything farther away than two feet. I continually stretched the close-up limits of that camera and soon had several close-up accessories.

I have a life-long interest in nature and wildlife. In younger days I was very fascinated by insects and that interest continues. I once considered insect photography to be a personal specialty.

Another part of my background includes being an electronic technician and this often spilled over into my photography work in the form of custom made solutions to photographic problems.

It was inevitable that my interest in insects and my electronics back-ground soon merged. In 1976 I made a remote flash head, to provide backlight, for my 3 light close-up macro flash set-up designed to photograph insects in the field. I have made numerous improvements to this system through the years. My current close-up flash system uses 4 remote heads on one powerpack. The picture on the right is from 1977.

My "spare time" work in camera repair gave me good technical insight of cameras from the inside out and this has proven to be very useful in solving technical problems on the job.

Most of my personal work and stock photography has been in 35mm although I also work with 2 1/4, and 4x5 formats. I used 4x5 for commercial and architectural work and quite a bit of black & white fine art work in the Zone System tradition. Lately most of my work is digital.

I enjoy the challanges of location work and I seem to be good at coming up with creative solutions to problems.