ABOUT ME

Somewhere between the disastrous finger-over-the-lens Kodak 110 photography of my childhood and my fixer-stained days as a high school newspaper photographer, I fell in love with the challenges of capturing light in a box.

With a shiny new bachelor’s degree in Communications/Journalism from Whitworth College, I cut my teeth in the photojournalism world as a stringer for the Associated Press and Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington. In Spokane, I found my work published worldwide during the Ruby Ridge standoff in 1992. Later, I worked as the sole photographer for a busy little daily newspaper in Kenai, Alaska where my images played above the fold on the paper’s front page every day for three years. Yearning for warmer climes, I moved to Coos Bay, Oregon to cover the southern half of the Oregon Coast for the area’s only daily newspaper.

With a few dozen awards on the shelf and tens of thousands of rolls of film shot, I left newspapers to sail along the west coast in a historic tall ship, the Lady Washington. Aboard the sailing ship, I taught thousands of school children each year about maritime history and nautical tradition. From the Lady Washington, I moved on to develop and lead education programs for the Museum of Flight in Seattle and the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Back home in the Pacific Northwest, I earned my captain’s license and returned to the Lady Washington as Master.

Eventually, I settled in Portland, Oregon where I drove big boats, taught First Aid and CPR classes, and eventually designed educational travel experiences for Elderhostel (now known as Road Scholar). In my free time, I fell back in love with photography and embraced the transition from film to digital. It was only natural that I combine my love of photography with my passion for lifelong learning, so I began leading photography workshops in 2009.

These days, I’m still a photographer and educator, but much of my time is spent at home in Portland with my beautiful wife Julie and our kids Cooper and Claire. When I can sneak away for a workshop, I do. I also squirrel myself away in my office every other week to produce a podcast with my friend, Jeff Carlson. You can find it here.