By my junior year in high school, my father realized I was not destined to be a Rhodes Scholar. His Plan B was to “suggest” I look into becoming a student 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. Relying heavily on my car, I secured a position with the paper.

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.

After a few months I showed enough progress to be aloud to take on some low risk general assignments. I quickly I realized I would need more people skills, creativity and technical knowledge. And so the real fun of photojournalism began.

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 seasoned enough to take on any assignment so I went where they sent me and love every moment. Sometimes ignorance is bliss .

After high school I picked up assignments for the paper while attending Wright State University and then Ohio University.

In time, it became apparent that newspapers were facing serious challenges. Production costs were mounting costs 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 with a friend to a job interview for a bartender position in a collage bar. Somehow I was hired and within a few months was managing the business by drawing on some of the same people skills I developed in journalism. It became the beginning of my hospitality career.

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 while tapping into a library of images in my mind. I was confidence that I could learn my way through the challenges as I had done with the newspaper.

My reasoning for creating this website was to provide an effective learning tool that encouraged me to give each images the attention it deserved while helping me integrate new ideas and new processes into my routine.