My fascination with photography began when I graduated from college and I asked my parents for a camera as a graduation gift. They graciously bought me a state of the art Minolta 35mm film body. I learned a lot using that system although I don’t have a ton of results that I am proud of from that era. I did learn the basics of exposure and composition, though. Digital photography gave me the instantaneous feedback I needed to truly improve my craft. Instead of having to wait for two weeks for my Fuji Velvia to come back from the lab, I was able to instantly evaluate my results with the on camera display. When I switched to digital I also switched to Nikon. As I hung out with more and more photographers I realized that the Nikon community was one I respected immensely. I’m sure that Canon makes wonderful products, but I get great results from my Nikon gear and wouldn’t switch.
My love for all things Apple began in graduate school. I was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree in Business Information Systems. In the mid 1980s I bought a dual floppy Mac and a 20 megabyte hard drive. The Mac cost $1,500 and the hard drive cost $1,000! A 20 MB hard drive would hold thousands of typed pages. Why would you need more space? Now, one file from my D700 takes 12 to 16 MB of space. I’ve owned countless Apple products since then and seen Apple rise, fall, and rise yet again. When digital photography took off in the early 2000s, my background in IT and love of photography were a perfect fit. I was now able to do things with images that I could do in the darkroom but were much more conveniently accomplished on the desktop computer. I own Lightroom and Photoshop, but most of my post-processing is done with Aperture, Nik software, and Photomatix Pro. The constant introduction of digital editing tools is fascinating to me. I love to find ways to better represent what I saw in the field on web sites, prints, and other applications.
I love to shoot. Some of my favorite days of the year are ones where I am up well before dawn to capture a sunrise from a new vantage point or when I am waiting for the light to turn just right during the last few minutes of the day before sunset. My favorite type of photography is shooting landscapes and nature scenes. But, I also enjoy shooting architecture, concerts, abstracts, and sports. I’m still working on my portrait skills, but I hope to add those to my bag of tricks some day soon as well.
My hope is that I can convey the beauty of God’s creation through the images I capture. If you can sense the grandeur, color, and drama of the scene I witnessed through an image I capture, I’ve succeeded as a photographer. I hope you enjoy this site a fraction as much as I enjoyed capturing the images.
