"You have to suffer for your art. Sometimes other people have to suffer for it, too."
-- Tom Horton

When I was at college, around 1970, I used to lug a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic view camera and big ugly tripod around the wilderness, trying to be the next Ansel Adams. Many others beat me to it, and I doubt if I was worthy of Ansel anyway.


I have moved on a bit in photography since then. I went through my journalism, film and advertising phases, but eventually I learned to relax and enjoy it and not consider it a job. And -- Buddhist moment here -- that's when my photos finally started to show something.


Exactly what they are showing is a matter of opinion, of course. I think I see some wonder and discovery and a healthy slice of bewilderment. Whatever you see in them, I do hope it's enjoyable and rewarding and that you will like them.


The goal (or bias?) of most of my photography is rather conventional: to capture the visual exactly as I saw it and remember it; to let others experience the impact of the scene as I did.


That's not as easy as it first appears, because cameras/lenses/CCDs are very different optical instruments than the human eye/brain combination. Both ways of seeing are excellent in some ways, highly deficient in others, and their strengths and weaknesses don't exactly match up.


So, you will not often find me distorting colors, changing backgrounds, blending images, assembling collages, etc. Instead, I mess a lot with exposure controls, light levels, color corrections and HDR techniques, PS and others, making subtle - rather than major - changes.


I guess that makes me a recorder of natural events rather than a creator of fantastic events...but I find the simple acts of observing and connecting with reality more than enough work for my limited brainpower. I'll leave the creation of new realities to someone else.


Thanks for stopping by!


(By the way, two of those 1970 photos -- "Streamside" and "The Boulders" -- are in the Landscape gallery.)

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