I grew up in northwestern lower Michigan (Benzie County), where I developed a strong interest in natural history, eventually culminating in a Ph.D. in Botany from the University of Michigan. After several years as a tropical botanist at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis and the Field Museum in Chicago (with a specialty in neotropical Euphorbiaceae), I changed directions radically (at least professionally) and went to law school. I practiced law in Chicago from 1995 until I retired in May 2015 (the last 6 years part time). I am now a full-time botanist once again (though not employed by anyone). I am the editor of The Great Lakes Botanist (formerly The Michigan Botanist), a peer-reviewed journal of Great Lakes area and North American botany and am working on several books combining botany and photography. In addition, I expect to get back into research, and have maintained a research associate position in Botany at the Field Museum in Chicago.

I first became interested in photography in graduate school, when I bought my first Nikon (a Nikkormat). During those years I amassed a large collection of slides, mostly of plants. My photographic activity waned over the intervening years (with occasional spurts of activity), but I picked it up again in 2008 when I purchased my first digital camera, a Nikon D80. Early in 2012, I purchased a Nikon D7000, which is now my camera of choice.

Most of my photographic energy goes into photographing plants, though I try to keep my photographic options open much more widely. Beginning in 2011, I have embarked on a project concentrating on photographing the plants of the Indiana Dunes area (including Indiana Dunes State Park and Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore).

Flickr is a great site in so many ways. I have learned so much by the opportunity to see the work of so many excellent photographers, and the comments, favorites and views from others are a superb way of finding out what people like (the results are sometimes what I expected, but more often quite surprising).