I was born in 1947 in the city of San Francisco, California. USA, child of a U.S. Marine and the New Zealand women he fell in love with during the War in the Pacific. My parents settled in San Francisco after the war and raised four children of whom I am the oldest.

Photography was my first love in the arts. When I was 16 yrs old I learned to Scuba dive and became an assistant dive instructor. My diving mentor was also a photographer who had a small black and white darkroom set up in the back of his dive shop in San Francisco. This was the time of the Nikon F and the emergence of the SLR 35mm camera. I was hooked. I roamed the California coastline on dive trips or by hitchhiking from Big Sur to Mendocino seeking images that moved me. I did this for a number of years while working odd jobs from California to Alaska.

In 1973 I fell in love with pottery while living in Southern California and as they say the rest is history. I have been a Professional Studio Potter for the last 25 years here in Alaska. I am also a sailor and have sailed here in Alaska for 16 yrs. We took an extended cruising trip in our own boat from Alaska to Mexico to Hawaii and back to Seward, Alaska in the years of 1989 to 1991. Now we sail mostly in Prince William Sound during the summer, trying to capture its wonders and mystery on film.

In 1999 my interest in photography was rekindled and I brought my self up to date on the latest technology. Thanks to the Internet I learned about the “Digital Darkroom” revolution. This is how I do my own work now. I use 35mm and some medium format slide film and scan into Photoshop 6 to work my images. Sometimes I manipulate the images very little and sometimes a lot.

I wish to capture a feel of place that gives me an emotional response of mystery to the landscape and sea interface that I love so well. I find great creativity and thus satisfaction working in Photoshop to fine-tune the images. My favorite images tend to be on the dark side, with large areas of black counter pointing rich areas of color and texture with an abstract viewpoint.