It all started in a middle school in Southern California in the mid-1970s;
they were building a darkroom. Soon I was taking photography class as an elective,
developing my own film and making black and white enlargements. Life was good.
[ Eastern Sierra, 1974 ]
Then we moved to Africa; then to Europe. I only had sporadic access to
a darkroom throughout high school, so mainly shot color and had it commercially developed.
Then back to Southern California, where two things happened: access to the college darkroom,
and a night job working in a pre-press darkroom.
[ Zimbabwe, 1977 ]
Working four years in a pre-press darkroom was both frustrating and influential.
Frustrating, because it was low-quality work, and it because it was truly black
and white--either black or white, with no shades of gray in between. But influential,
because my photographic style shifted towards high contrast and bold composition.
[ Budapest, Hungary, 1979 ]
When I graduated from college and got a "real" job, darkroom access was
lost once again. Except for a few dozen rolls of black and white film which were developed
but never printed, I shot nothing but color for almost 15 years.
[ Mt. San Antonio, 1984 ]
In 1999, my dad bought me a digital camera for Christmas. Great ,
I thought, now I can take digital snapshots... But the digital camera changed
everything. With relative ease, I could "develop" black and white photographs in my digital
darkroom. My love of contrasty black and white images was rekindled.
[ Icehouse Canyon, 1991 ]
In early 2002, I added a Nikon film scanner to my digital darkroom.
Scanning nearly 30 years of negatives proved to be a daunting task, but a worthwhile one also. If I never took another photograph in my life, I could keep busy just browsing and printing the resulting 20,000+ scanned files.
[ Greece, 1993 ]
I have recently come to the conclusion that during the "dark" years when
I was without darkroom access and only shooting color print film, as a photographer I
became extremely frustrated trying to "take black and white photographs on color film."
[ Iris Meadow, 1996 ]
But with the film scanner, all of those "lost shots" can be salvaged--the
color negatives scanned, converted to black and white positives, and manipulated in the
digital darkroom. Every time I ran negatives through the scanner, it was like Christmas!
[ East Highlands Ranch, 2000 ]
It was in a college art class that I was first introduced to the photography
of Edward Weston. I immediately developed an interest in his work, and his life.
[ Dana Point Headlands, 2001 ]
While working in the pre-press darkroom, my friend and co-worker Dan--who knew
so much more about fine art photography than I did--would tell me stories he had read
or heard about Edward, and his sons Brett and Cole.
[ Joshua Tree National Park, 2002 ]
In 2002, I had the pleasure to attend a four day photography workshop in Carmel
hosted by Cole, Kim, and Gina Weston. You can see some of the images from
this workshop in the [ galleries ] section of this Web site.
[ Point Lobos, 2002 ]
2003 was an incredibly productive year for me in terms of photography. A week-long visit to Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and the Alabama Hills in February with my friend Steve Harris produced a number of great images.
[ Death Valley, 2003 ]
Also in 2003, I finally finished my Big Bear Lake portfolio, photographing the lake shore from my kayak at sunrise in all four seasons. And there's even more on the way, so be sure to check back here from time to time.
