After graduating from the University of California with a degree in Environmental Studies and no job prospects, I bought a backpack, a plane ticket to the South Pacific, and my first camera. The excitement of wandering with my eyes wide open for 4 months always searching for images, in a naïve way, sent me to photography school when I returned. After almost 30 years, that excitement still exists, in both searching for images and creating them.
Capturing a moment in time and creating a mood are driving forces. Putting your vision onto a scene through lighting and composition is like creating a painting with a palette full of colors and a blank canvas. It is an exciting challenge that keeps calling. Interpreting a scene and letting it tell you the drama or airiness required, and being able to accomplish that mood, is my passion.
My love of travel photography brought me, in a roundabout way, to shooting architecture. The geometry and analytical side of buildings fit my personality and still allowed a creative outlet. It also allowed me to travel because they can’t bring the buildings to you! Early on, using a large format camera further suited the buildings and me. The digital world allows a lot more freedom. Shooting architecture has been parlayed into, and is similar to, photographing furniture, fixtures, casinos and just about anything. It has also led me to trekking in the Himalayas and wandering about in Timbuktu, Marrakech, Istanbul, Kathmandu and Tierra del Fuego.
After years of photographing architecture, I innocently wandered into the Orpheum Theatre in downtown LA. Being a third generation native Angeleno, I never realized structures like that existed in this city. This sent me on a spin to record historic buildings, in their seemingly always-precarious state, in this ever-changing metropolis. It is a never-ending project that has produced two books, with a third one in the works, and often gives the sense of an urban archaeology expedition.
I look forward to sharing my passion with clients and friends, continuing to record what is left of historic LA, and trying to calmly live in coastal LA.
