Lifelong nomad. The "J" stands for Jonathan Livingston Seagull. I don't make the rules.

I use photographs to express my experience of the world in visual form. I treat life as its own work of art and continuously strive to live up to it in what I do. Let's hope I'll get there sometime (I certainly hope to die trying, having a blast).

Until not so long ago, I was photographing with whatever I could get my hands on, mostly borrowed, rented, or found.

Off the top of my head, this went from an Asahi Pentax SV to a few digital Canon Rebels, a Yashica FX, some analog point-and-shoots I can't recall, and finally to an Olympus C-750 digicam.

These days I split my time between shooting with a Nikon D200 (mostly using my favorite 25-50mm f/4 Ai-s) and my Ferrania Lince 3 and Ferrania Eura film cameras. I also own a Kodak Signet 35, an amazing little rangefinder that unfortunately spends vastly more time on the shelf either awaiting or undergoing repairs than it does shooting - fickle shutter be damned. There is also a Mamiya Press, which I am still in the process of slowly kitting out with as many of its accessories as I can manage to find. However, it takes quite a bit of something for me to haul that magnificent beast out of the house with me and shoot - its nature, its personality seems to call for only the most serious kinds of work.

I try to be as holistic about my working process as I can be and embrace it to the fullest. I develop all of my own film, nowadays mainly using a concoction I came up with myself, based on a mix of vitamin C, sodium carbonate, dried rosemary, and a secret ingredient or a few ;)

I also make my own prints, at a very conservative pace but steadily nonetheless. I don't own a pro-grade enlarger and don't plan on investing in the bulk, so instead I have devised a contraption for myself consisting of a tripod, the Mamiya (sans film back), a self-made film holder that's good for up to 6x9-size negatives, and a DIY lampbox. I have yet to perfect it, but results so far seem pretty promising.

In the future, I would like to experiment with making my own sheet film and paper emulsions, and shooting much more in medium and large format - I have always lusted after one of those shiny Graflex Speed Graphics, a desire that has only grown with the fun I've been having with the Mamiya's bellows movements.