My name is John and I was born and raised in the beautiful State of Oregon. Through the years I've had a few careers that included Musician, Sous Chef, Computer Science/Photography Educator, Senior IT Consultant and longest being a Showjumper Trainer / Rider until a severe shoulder injury put an end to it. My horses got retired the same time as I and now we just ride for pleasure. As for my photographic endeavors I have taken photos since I was a teenager in the 80's and in 1986 with my first high school photography course, I won awards for my black and white photo titled, "Community Eggs". Since then I have been an active shooter, selling silver gelatin, platinum and archival ink prints world wide and occasionally release an eZine called, "Outre". My specialty is in black and white, but I do enjoy color. All my photos are taken in digital and film (35mm, medium and 4x5 large) formats. In my full darkroom I process film and make photographic prints, while my digital images are processed in Affinity Photo and cataloged in Adobe Lightroom. My old school photographic philosophy is "To make a beautiful print, you have to start with a beautiful negative." This holds true for my digital photos as well; I try to make every image happen in the camera and use digital processing and editing to complete that image. As a life long learner, I always look forward to learning new techniques, concepts and giving myself new challenges. This has been a life long journey of exploring the world around me and presenting it through the medium of photography.