Bio
I began photographing seriously when the Air Force sent me to eastern New Mexico in the early 1970’s. To someone who had grown up on a Florida beach, it seemed an alien place. The nearest water was a small lake eighty miles away. Tarantulas dropped from my ceiling and the otherwise vacant lots across the street were prairie dog towns. Every spring, the wind blew all day, the sky turned dust red, and tumble weeds collected on the backyard fence. It took me awhile to recognize the timeless beauty of the place.
At first, the western rivers also disappointed me. They were not at all like the movies. Most of the time they were gullies with puddles. The other times they were dangerous. The Red River in west Texas was the first wide and deep river I saw, but it was the canyon it had carved that wowed me.
With its layered cliffs and red rock spires, Palo Duro Canyon looked like the West I had expected. I dug out my Kodak Instamatic and shot three or four roles of Kodacolor to show the folks back home.
When everyone said my pictures looked like postcards, my ego was hooked. I bought a 35mm SLR and soon began shooting slides. In no time, I was regaling family and friends with mini travelogues.
When I returned to Florida, I took a darkroom course and emerged a black and white photographer. Although my Air Force sojourn had been only four years, Florida had changed noticeably. The steady undercurrent of development had risen to flood level. Searching for the Florida of my childhood, I walked the beaches and drove the back roads photographing fragments of the past, and odd or interesting juxtapositions of old and new.
Eventually, through a lot of experimentation and a slow and sometimes painful evolution, I realized that I am a color photographer at heart. With that realization, the world in my viewfinder awakened. In a way, I began to see again as I had seen as a child.
