I’ve been practicing optometry for 36 years but when I grow up I want to be a professional nature photographer. Since I’m not trying real hard to grow up it may be a while before my dream comes true but in the meantime I’m enjoying the trip. I stumbled into what I considered serious photography in the early seventies when I bought my first SLR – a Minolta SRT-102. It happened to be on sale and I had a charge card; what other reason did I need? I got a lot more serious in 1976 when I bought a Minolta XK while stationed in Japan with the US Air Force. Kid photography dominated the next 20 years or so but in the mid nineties I got interested in shooting things that don’t talk back.
I grew up in southern Indiana but my mom’s parents lived in Oregon. Every summer we would make the trip to Chicago to catch a train bound for Portland. Travelling through the grand vistas of the west on the Union Pacific, Great Northern and Northern Pacific was an experience I still recall vividly and fondly. My grandparents spent a lot of time at their house in Yachats on the central Oregon coast. I could and did spend hours just watching the power of the Pacific Ocean crashing into the Coast Range headlands.
Career brought me to Houston in 1985 and we’ve lived here ever since. I miss the great mountains of the west and the Pacific Coast – we rarely vacation anywhere else - but Texas has its own allure. A good wildflower spring in the Lone Star state is a spectacle second to none. I’ve also been blessed with my wife Christine who is a master gardener and the provider of most of my regular subjects. I rarely have to walk more than 100 feet out the door to have my fill of flowers and butterflies. My 200mm macro lens practically lives on my camera.
The beauty all around us intrigues me. I’m a Bible teacher and scholar and am blessed to have a profession and a hobby that shows me God’s amazing creativity every time I look into an eye or through a viewfinder. My goal with my images is not to merely make pretty pictures but to show as best I can what He has wrought. Soli Deo Gloria; to God alone be the glory.
