About
What a funky, bizarre, invigorating, challenging, tedious, adventurous, joyful, sad, funny, uplifting, chaotic, peaceful and loving journey this life has been. I remember when I graduated High School, looking at everyone gathered with their families and wondered out loud to my own family “So now what?” Had zero clue as to what I was supposed to do with my life, utterly unprepared for what was to be. Made the decision to partake in a local community collage, figure things out on the relative “cheap” while attaining a degree.
At some point during that 1st year I took a photography class of sorts, where I learned the basics of taking pictures. My sister at the time was quite the picture taking fiend, an interest that apparently rubbed off on me. I wanted to nurture this curiosity and see what could come from it, so this class certainly helped in that regard. My semester ending project synching a series of vivid sunsets in and around where I lived with the music of Genesis’s Home By The Sea was a hit.
From that point on, I embraced capturing moments of all sorts, while living life, surviving and at times thriving. Moved to Brooklyn, New York a short time after turning 22, Pentax K-1000 in hand, and went about the cityscape. A bare to the bone manual camera, loaded with beautifully vibrant Fuji Velvia slide film, had so much fun capturing moments. Eventually landed jobs here and there related to the arts, yet nothing really stuck, retreated to a variety of retail and later digital production based positions.
During the mid 90’s researched and then blew a gold card on an Apple Macintosh computer (Quadra 660av), monitor, memory, back up drives, etc.. Embraced the desktop publishing world, understanding how the creative world was evolving (to the chagrin I’m sure of my Graphic Arts teacher in school, who vehemently pushed all of us students away from anything to do with technology, fool!). Learned the joyful fun of scanning slides and working on them in Fractal Design Painter, an amazing program for editing photos and creating art. I also upgraded my film camera to a Canon EOS Elan, 35mm auto focus power house of tech which improved my capturing abilities.
As Y2K anxieties came and went, the 2000’s entered the scene. I had at this point began working at an ad agency located in Midtown Manhattan’s west side. One of the biggest on the planet, O&M helped me in to many ways - financially, broadening my knowledge of technology, and learning the realities of big business / corporate America. With understanding skill levels were improving rapidly in a variety of areas of the arts, growth apparent in what I was creating. Around 2008 I finally took the plunge and embraced capturing moments digitally using a Canon 5D.
Shooting digitally was a game changing moment for me; the ability see exposures in camera and make changes if need be on the fly was surreal. The quality of the images generated improved dramatically, the creative playing field leveling out for competing with anyone / everyone. Was shown to the door by the ad agency eventually, which led to becoming a One to One instructor at Apple. My students were such an eclectic group, which made teaching them challenging and rewarding at times. Fond memories for the most part, especially how game everyone was for me capturing portraits of themselves at the end of our sessions.
I left Apple after 3 and a half years and moved from NYC to the land of western Pennsylvania, specifically Mt. Lebanon. I’d always been curious about this region swirling about Pittsburgh, and decided to take the plunge (the impetus of reuniting with my childhood sweetheart helped immensely in this regard, yet the heartwarming reason quickly turning into quite a psychotic episode). Went on many adventures while living in the region, yet eventually retreated quite quickly back to NYC, specifically my old stomping grounds in Brooklyn.
Starting over at 42, quite an experience, eh? That’s where I found myself, and yet thanks to the immense assistance of my sister Helene I was able to forge ahead. I landed at job working at a Trader Joes, which allowed me incredible flexibility with balancing life. At this point and time began the wholesale reinvention of my photographic / artistic self, culminating with the creation of my NYC Nights imaging project. In conjunction with upgrading my imaging capturing abilities with a Pentax K-1 and improved Adobe Camera RAW workflow, the imagery achieved a level of quality I hadn’t realized I was capable of.
So much freaking fun being unleashed creatively in so many ways, very appreciative for the opportunities which have presented themselves.
And the journey continues . . .
