I became interested in photography and its power while looking through the collection of family photographs as a child. The old formal shots, snapshots, wedding albums, Civil War tintypes, and postcards carried me away to a different but yet familiar time. I began reading about history and photography and tried my hand at taking photos.
This led to a lifetime of interest in both history and photography. Even while parachuting from a helicopter in Vietnam, I was thinking about how this scene would look as a photograph and what would it say about that point in history. Eventually, I ended up at the University of Wisconsin Graduate School in Archives and Museum Studies with an emphasis on photography.
I studied and interned with the Iconography Department of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and then on the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus as an Audio-Visual Archivist and then Conservator for audio and visual material in the Conservation Laboratory at OHS.
Recently, I have been collecting and using film cameras of the past as a way to reconnect with the pre-digital era and regain that excitement and creativity of thinking about and manipulating a camera to take a memorable photograph. I love the City of Martinez and its surrounding area and many of my photographs are of this beautiful and historic area.
