Artist Bio
I began my journey as a photographer the same way many of my peers did: with a camera passed down or gifted. It is something not terribly expensive but with good glass and simple operations. Mine was a Yashica-MAT 124G, during one of its final years in production. This was in 1985. It was an oddball relic even at the time since almost everyone else I knew had already become acquainted with 35mm. But I was and continue to be rebellious. I would prefer a larger negative. My rig was heavier, simpler, and so required more patience and thought. It required an artist’s eye, and that’s what I would put to it.
Now I was a photographer. And I would be known among my friends as that eccentric with a strange, boxy twin-lens camera, which I took with me everywhere. I learned how to frame a shot and the essentials of exposure.
Fast forward. I would sell off that Yaschica and later upgrade to a second-hand Mamiya C220 after graduating from college. I was in New York pursuing a career in publishing, and later my roots would set in Los Angeles where I continued to pursue photography and publishing.
My cameras are an extension of me, my inner dialog brought to the fore. I compose when I shoot. We’re constantly moving in a place like Los Angeles, but it is through my constant pursuit of photographic exceptionalism that I’m able to see the details, the story, and the drama of the stillness between stoplights. I’ll always shoot, and most of the pictures are not going to be that good, but the ones that get through will hopefully transcend into a photograph.