Formative Years
I decided from the time I purchased my first camera that I wanted my life's work to involve photography, so I ultimately had to figure out how to make a living. With all the subjects you could be paid to photograph, I thought that architecture was the most interesting. I purchased a 4x5 view camera, the requisite photographic instrument for an architectural photographer at that time. As I was learning to use this camera commercially, I became equally fascinated with the creative possibilities of the view camera and the large film image. In the late 70s I began to photograph in color and continued my color work with the large format camera. The technical challenge of becoming a proficient commercial photographer radically expanded my photographic knowledge and capabilities. I applied these abilities to my personal work. My primary influences shifted somewhat from Cartier-Bresson to the painter Edward Hopper. Photographers Eugene Atget, Josef Sudek, and Walker Evans had also become very influential, and all remain so today.
