Hello and welcome to my spot on the world wide web!! First let me say 'Thank You' for taking the time to view my work. If there is something that you see on my web site that you want to comment on, give me a call or drop me an email. I would really like to hear from you.

Childhood

I have always been interested in photography. My earliest memory is using my dad's old Kodak camera for a 3rd or 4th grade field trip with Gladys Black, the 'Bird Lady of Iowa.' It was a Kodak Brownie Starmite that was older than me. You had to manually switch out the flash bulb once it went off (and had cooled off enough not to burn your fingers). The pictures were in black and white. You had to take the roll of film to the drug store and wait about a week in anticipation for the images. Does anyone else remember those cameras?

Amateur

But my big jump into photography started around 2001 when I enrolled in my first black and white photography class at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids Iowa. The instructor, Helen Grunewald, became a mentor to me, helping me to master the camera and darkroom, and to learn how to see as a photographer. It didn't take me long to go from shooting with a 35 mm film camera to taking photos with a medium format camera and developing my eye for composition. And every spring there is a student art competition sponsored by the college and in the spring of 2002, I won for the 'Best in Photography' with my self-portrait entitled Magic Eye. If you get a chance to view my self-portrait, you can will get an impression about how much I love to experiment with images and light. And while there is no denying the practical benefits of digital imaging, there is still a nostalgia for the magic moments when a print first starts to form an image by safelight in the darkroom.

Professional

I have moved on to digital photography. I still very much enjoy my fine art work. But now I also find myself looking for that combination of color, composition, texture and that ever elusive quality of emotion when photographing people. That tell tale sign of feeling good or that wow factor that sets apart an image from all others. I'm watching the seconds in between the seconds - that's where the magic happens! My style tends to be a little different from other photographers. I do my best to try and capture that naturalness in people. I really like mixing up my traditional with non-traditional shots. I guess you could say that I enjoy making art out of everyday life!