My first serious camera was a weather-beaten 2 1/4 twin lens Rollie my father handed down to me when I was 15 years old. It wasn't long before I had taken over the fruit cellar in the basement of our home for my first darkroom. I did not have an enlarger as yet, so I contact printed the 120 negatives there among the jars of strawberry preserves and stewed tomatoes. I shot with the Rollie through high school and into college, where I re-discovered 35mm film. I learned al lot about exposure using those entirely manual systems and by making every mistake in and out of the book.

Like many of my photographic generation, I grew up admiring the work of Edward Weston, Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, and, of course, Ansel Adams. I was struck by Adams' work and hoped someday to make prints that approached his level of technical quality and creative insight. I immersed myself in his trilogy, The Camera, The Negative, and The Print, which became my classroom. After completing a series of zone system measurements and tests, I began shooting with the Hasselblad, which I used throughout the 80's and 90's for most of my black and white work. The distillation of my work during that period was featured in an exhibit called "Shadows Distinct" which opened in September of 2001 in lower Manhattan.

The culmination of my photographic passion was on display at Goldeneye Gallery in downtown Savannah, where for five years beginning in 2005, I sold framed, limited editions of my work, many of which are now on display here on Flickr.