I have had the distinct pleasure of falling madly in love several times in my life. The first was my wife of 50 years. The second was my daughters. The third was my grandchildren. The fourth was my great grandchildren. Mixed into all that was my discovery and love of photography. I came from a performing background where creativity and innovation was not just revered but expected. All of that ended when we moved to Colorado in 1983. My creative release was satisfied by photography. The photographic journey started in 1984 with classes in intermediate and advance photography and mastering the printing of black and white, color and cibachrome images. I quickly jumped into the wedding and portrait business, all the while capturing Colorado landscapes. My career with IBM for 30 years until my retirement in 2007 allowed me the freedom to pursue my photographic needs and fine tune my abilities. After retirement, I decided to share my landscape imagery with the public and pursue my photography full time. I have since won several awards for my landscape work including Best of Show and First Place at St Stephen’s in 2010.
I am a purist at heart. I love simple and powerful images with the minimum of electronic manipulation, similar to what we all used to do in the dark room with filters, dodging and burning. I do not believe pushing a button in Photoshop is an artistic creation. I am a firm believer in the basic skills of light, composition, subject matter, management of depth of field and theme. I respect and appreciate the skills needed to create digitally enhanced images as well as the creative forethought used to manage the end result but I do not believe Photoshop creations are a work of photographic art. They are, in my mind, a graphic arts creation.
Bottom line, I am looking for a marriage of the old masters and new technology to transcend imagery to a new level. Having lived in the time of both has given me a unique perspective to assess what is real photographic art or just digital manipulation. I deeply appreciate and respect all photographic artists and I am in awe of the beauty they are capable of creating.