By my junior year in high school, my father realized I was not destined to be a Rhodes Scholar. He “suggested” I look into becoming a student sports photographer for the local newspaper. When I inquired about the position, l learned of the strict qualifications for the position which were a modicum of photographic talent and a reliable car, not particularly in that order.

As it turned out, the paper did not have a formal training program. For the technical side of things I would shadow the staff photographers and do what they did. The creative skills I would need to learn as I went along. After a few months, I showed enough progress to be aloud to take on some low risk general assignments.

While gaining the experience I needed, I was fortunate to have met some remarkable people. Some were famous but more often they were my neighbors that had some special talent or remarkable story to tell. Thankfully they were also the ones who trusted a green teenager to get their story right. By my senior year, I was experienced enough to take on most any assignment.

After high school I picked up assignments for the paper on occasion while attending Wright State University and then Ohio University were I became a photography major.

During an extended internship with the newspaper, it became apparent that newspapers were facing some serious challenges. Production costs were mounting while advertising revenue was being dramatically affected by the competition from television. The future of print journalism was beginning to look bleak. It had me seriously questioning my career choice.

On a lark I went to a job interview for a bartender position in a collage bar. Somehow I was hired and within a few months was managing the bar. I was able to draw on some of the same people skills I developed in journalism. It became the beginning of my hospitality career which included restaurants and hotels.

Despite not being a producing photographer for a number of years, my visualization skills continued so when the digital cameras were introduced it presented an opportunity to adapt my film experience to digital photography.

The website has become an important part of my learning process. It has allowed me to study my photographs in depth while tracing my progress with the goal of improvement with each new image. Additionally, my subject matter has become more diverse and documentary in nature.