IN 1961, AT THE AGE OF EIGHT, I CAN STILL VIVIDLY REMEMBER MY mom describing
Mt. Rainier as a "giant pink snow cone," as we gazed to the southeast, at sunset, from the balcony of our apartment in Bellevue, Washington. It soon became a nightly ritual for the four of us to gather on our balcony and watch as the last rays of light bathed the majestic volcano in ever changing shades of pink, orange, red and purple. Like most of us, those early life impressions are deeply embedded in our hearts and souls. Thus began my life long passion for seeking out scenic beauty.
My parents were a huge influence in molding both my appreciation for, and my ability to capture the beauty of nature with camera and film. My father was a restaurateur whose passion was creating... either in a wonderfully prepared gourmet family dinner, or in painting landscapes with watercolors. In his paintings, he made me aware of the subtle nuances of composition, balance, perspective, depth and color which are so vital in creating a visually stirring image. My mother was a bookkeeper, a career that demands exactness, "down to the last penny," as she always used to say. Thus evolved my desire to attempt to capture images as precisely as my eyes, heart and mind… saw, felt and envisioned them. On family vacations, my parents also gave my brother, Patrick and I, the gift of exposure to some of the truly great scenic treasures of our country. One early vacation took us to
Yosemite, the Redwoods, Mt. Lassen and
Crater Lake National Parks. Another brought the
Grand Tetons,
Yellowstone and the Badlands into our ever expanding reservoir of scenic memories. Of course, growing up in the Pacific Northwest (that one year in Seattle and the next 39 in Portland, Oregon) I was always under the addicting scenic influence of the
Cascade Range, the
Columbia River Gorge and the Oregon and Washington coasts.
As I approached my teenage years, athletics, in particular basketball grew to become a very important and dominant passion in my life. I attended Jesuit High School, in Portland, Oregon and was an All-State forward in 1971. After a year at Gonzaga University, in Spokane, Washington, I transferred to Southern Oregon University and played basketball there for three years, gaining All-American recognition as a senior. I also received invitations to tryout for the Portland Trailblazers and later, the Phoenix Suns. I graduated from Southern Oregon University in 1977, with education degrees in history and physical education. My dream of playing professional basketball did not materialize, but God has a wonderful way of opening new doors as he closes old ones. That "new door" opened for me when my parents bought me a 35mm camera as my college graduation gift. At the time, I had no idea how that camera would affect my adult life.
My first pictures, most of them in the backyard in Portland, or at Washington Park were the first step in a long evolution of going from what you actually see with your eyes to creating a visually dramatic image with the camera and film. This is not an easy task. Even today, some thirty years of experience later, that "perfect image" is still tauntingly elusive.
As my attempts to master photography continued, I began to rely on my family and a very special lifelong friend, Todd McClelland, for critiques of my images. Todd has made a very successful career for himself as a commercial camera man. His creative eye, experience, and suggestions have been a true blessing. At this time, the late 1970's, I also began to analyze the techniques of my favorite photographers (Ray Atkeson, David Muench, Galen Rowell, Pat O'Hara and Ansel Adams) to see how they had created images that were so powerful, beautiful and moving. Only through in depth study of their images and reflecting upon and applying the lessons I had learned from my own photography, was I able to attain the dramatic images which you see today.
In the early eighties, I made the decision to pursue my photography on a more serious level. The first step was to improve the technical quality of my images which meant moving from a 35mm camera to a medium format camera. I purchased a Bronica 6x6 (see link to
photo equipment) which is the camera that was used for all of my posters. This camera was very similar to my previous 35mm SLR camera except everything was bigger (camera, lenses, and tripod) and there were more components to the system. Instead of one or two zoom lenses with my 35mm camera system, I now had eight fixed focal length lenses, all of which dwarfed the two 35mm lenses. The end result was a much higher quality image, but the added weight to my backpack was significant. It was at this point that I became very grateful for all those years of physical conditioning that came with playing basketball.
Over the next ten years, I spent most of my free time (when I wasn't working as a delivery driver for United Parcel Service in Portland) exploring the scenic beauty of the western United States. Weekends usually involved hiking or climbing trips into the
Cascades and yearly vacations were spent in
Southern Utah,
Arizona,
Montana,
Hawaii, and the
Canadian Rockies. My brother, Patrick, was usually my loyal companion although I would do some of the trips alone. His friendship, sense of humor and creative eye made those trips some of the happiest and most productive of my life. During most of the 90's my photography had to take a secondary priority in my life as family issues were more important. With the new millennium came a vastly different lifestyle for me. I married my beautiful wife, Amy, moved to the Midwest, and have very happily settled in Omaha, Nebraska. I now have the time to pursue the passion of my photography full time, and I am very proud to display these images after the many years of hard, yet extremely rewarding work. It is my hope that you enjoy these images, and that they bring you the same peace, beauty and inspiration I found in creating them.
