Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, I survived the tumult and excesses of the “sex, drugs and rock & roll” era. I suspect that spending the summers of my youth at my family’s summer home in the Sierra Nevada mountains provided just enough respite from those temptations to keep me out of trouble, well, mostly.

Following an adolescent passion, I briefly studied photography at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. A rapid accumulation of student loan debt led me to enlist in the US Navy as a photographer. After six years of taking photographs for Uncle Sam, I took a position as a photographer and graphic artist in the Department of Structural Biology at Stanford University.

My first and primary inspiration during this phase of my image-making was the work of the members of the f64 Group, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, in particular. Later influences included Edward Steichen, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Minor White, Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, André Kertész, and W. Eugene Smith, the usual pantheon of great 20th-century photographers. I was frustrated with my personal work practice. I started to believe my work was more imitative of their work rather than being influenced by these great photographers. Then I discovered Ernst Haas and thought I had found a way forward - there was color! Alas, ultimately it was not enough to break free of my frustration.

I struggled to overcome my GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) and the never-ending search for the perfect film, format, developer, paper, or technique to make my images stand out. I should have focused more on what I was making images of and why - the subject, composition and what I was trying to communicate. This focus on gear and technique led to frustration and disappointment - I never found my muse. In the end, making images for a living and the frustration with my personal work tamped down what remained of my passion for photography. After leaving Stanford, I sold my cameras, lenses and darkroom equipment to pursue my other passion - bicycles. I made a career in the bicycle industry for over 35 years. Except for the occasional “happy snap,” I did not take a photograph for nearly 25 years.

Then, in the late 2000s, I purchased an iPhone, and suddenly, taking photographs was fun again. It was all new and digital. There was no waiting to see your image, no mess, no chemicals. My passion renewed, and I continue to work to deepen my knowledge and skills in the digital photography medium to create images that match my vision - what I see.