My first career was as a teacher of severely disabled adolescents – which I did for almost 30 years and loved. While challenging, each day was filled with humor and affection. And I learned to appreciate small steps taken. Even though I had been a film photographer for awhile, I started to apply the photographic craft on that job, taking black and white photographs of the students to be put in the yearbook the teachers put together for the students and their families. When I retired I knew I wanted to explore photography more deeply and I gave myself the gift of a photographic workshop called Hidden Yosemite. That workshop was the first of many, but I spent those two weeks traipsing around the more unknown nether-regions of the Yosemite high country. It was exhausting and exhilarating. That was the beginning for me, knowing that I wanted to devote myself to learning this craft and going wherever it took me. Several years later I was given the gift of a free mentorship with a well-known black and white landscape photographer, George DeWolfe. One of the assignments he gave me during that year was to pick one location fairly easy to get to from my house and to photograph there every day for three months! If I skipped a day I would have to start all over again. I was able to finish that assignment, with some episodes of pure frustration and angst, but ending with an incredible feeling of joy while doing it. That was when I knew I would continue this artistic pursuit until I couldn’t do it anymore.

I am a fine-art photographer. I pursue this craft for my own creative purposes. My “products” consist of my own artwork that I exhibit in galleries, group shows and exhibitions – regionally, nationally and internationally. My artwork consists of intimate landscapes, mostly in black and white, that communicate the presence of often-ignored or passed-over beauty existing even in the least-expected places, both wild and man-made. My goal comes from my own love of the land, of wilderness, of being in places that have been mostly untouched (no matter how small), of natural change and impermanence. Since I find great peace and solitude in those places, I can only hope that viewers also will feel the same when they look at my work. I have been strongly influenced by Asian poetry, philosophy and art and therefore I often accompany my images with small poems to communicate my own experiences while out in the field. And I feel as humans we all have the capacity and need to relate to the earth, its gifts and its voice, since we an integral part of it. And because we live in such a chaotic and troubled time, I can only hope that viewing my images provides a brief moment of peace, solitude and a return to the healing beauty of the world.

I was blessed with a family that loved art and photography. I didn’t appreciate that or the role that played in my own creative journey until I was much older. Now I realize how important it is for me (and I believe for all artists, no matter what their field) to know the history of artists who have come before us and to take the time, as often as possible, to visit art galleries, museums, fellow artists’ exhibitions, to read books or listen to podcasts about art in whatever form they come. Those excursions into the art world are like dropping a coin into a well which we can always draw upon when needed. They can have a mysterious or subconscious influence on us in those times when we don’t know what the next step is along our own artistic path. For photographers, especially I believe it is vital to know some photographic history, to know whose shoulders we stand upon, no matter what the genre of our own photography is. Photographic movements, currents, tides etc. all come from what has taken place before; the questions past photographers were trying to answer and their “solutions” can be a strong catalyst for us now. The longer I immerse myself in this creative field, the more important I feel it is to have that deep connection to our photographic past. That type of knowledge allows any artist to have a deeper knowledge of their artistic craft and to recognize or begin to articulate the direction in which their own art is going.

When I was about to retire, people would ask me what was I going to do the “keep busy”! While I understood the reasons for that question, it was always mildly offensive to me. Life is not about keeping busy (as though we need something to keep our minds off the single most important reality – that we are alive at all!) But I am a very lucky person in that regards, since my artistic “career” is a passion that keeps me questioning, searching, rejoicing in life. The other aspect that is important to me is the circle of friends I have who are also engaged in some type of creative pursuit. What wonderful people to be around and spend time with! When I and other photographers were searching for a group to share our work with for critiques and feedback, we decided to start our own group. It is still going strong seven years later, meeting every six weeks, sharing whatever we’re working on. Every one of these artists is a vital, curious and interesting human being. That may be the most rewarding aspect of all. And I am constantly in awe of the reality that there is always something new around the corner.