My background is in computer science, software and systems. Lots of C code, database work, graphical User Interfaces. My PhD studies were in computer graphics and animation.

I've done websites for a long time. Started with hand coded HTML, then to a few different applications that would let me design quickly - currently using DreamWeaver with CSS and templates.

When I was studying for my PhD, I was doing Director and Flash - so my websites at the time showed that off.

I've also done back-end stuff - ColdFusion was fun, but I hated being locked into their servers. ASP is better - only used that a little bit.

I've also done e-commerce websites - my most recent one used www.modularmerchant.com as the store. Nice application, very helpful people. I figured that was easier than reverse engineering somebody else's code. Pretty easy to get a full-blown e-commerce site up quickly. (My earlier website used Paypal for payment processing, that was not a good experience. I ended up having to close the site down, and redesign from the ground up using modularmerchant, with authorize.net as the payment processor. Paypal is really glitchy with subscriptions.)

From multimedia on the computer, I got into digital video. From there, I wanted better still pictures for the DVD covers, the still art in the menus, so I picked up a digital camera. I got frustrated with the crummy light in meeting rooms and at the venues where I was photographing, started nosing around looking for lighting and photography advice. I found the Strobist (www.strobist.com) and ended up here in flickr.

It felt like home. :^) I haven't left. The education I've gotten here is priceless. (Thanks to everybody.)