Background

·   Am given first camera, Kodak Baby Brownie. Am instructed to keep sun behind me at all times. Dad says, Always put people in pictures, more interesting that way.

·   Car trip from Ontario to Alberta. Day four, come over rise, see first Rocky Mountain. Dad says, Might want to wait, mountain still far away. Looks bigger in viewfinder than it will in the snapshot. Don’t believe him, take picture anyway. Get pictures back a month later. Mountain a tiny dark smear on horizon.

·   Am given second camera, Kodak Hawkeye. Take it to Quin-Mo-Lac summer camp. Make portrait of Cookie, the cook. Stunning. I took that?

·   Second car trip to the Rockies. Take picture of St. Mary’s Lake, Glacier Park, Montana. Cunning branch swoops down through top of frame. Enter photo contest. Win $5, first prize, landscape division. Published in high school yearbook. Go out and take art shots of leafless sumacs, weathered barns.

·   Purchase first 35mm camera: Argus split-image rangefinder, cool-looking outside-mounted focusing gears. Start shooting colour. My friend George in front of Athabasca Glacier. My white TR2, red brake drums, wire wheels. Bath, Bristol, Stonehenge. Kingston. Apartment broken into, camera gone.

·   Stopgap measure: cheap Instamatic. Square format. Colour shot of Mt. Baker that looks fabulously sepia-toned. Yellow cat asleep on car tire, green fender. Detail! Enter photos of rust, peeling paint, greasy auto parts in obscure Vancouver show, have several accepted. Organizers misplace one, never find it.

·   First SLR: Konica Autoreflex T. Go back to black & white. 135 mm lens. No tripod. Steady hand, brace elbows, minimum 1/125 of a second. Closeups of strangers from across the street. Hookers in Toronto. Bankers in Montreal. Friend gives me darkroom instruction. First experience of bona fide magic. Red light, white paper, clear fluid. Poke paper this way and that with tongs. Wait. Wait some more. Old Winnipeg couple begins to appear. Tweed. Polka dots. Highlight. Shadow. One week later, shoot seventy-two frames of sculpted snowdrifts. Go back to darkroom. Friend says, Use my developer, it’s fresh, I guarantee it. Film comes out blank. Was not developer. Was water. Decide to mix fresh batch of my own, for next time. Glass gallon jug. Hot. Go outside, stick in snowbank to cool faster. Crack! What is that sound? Bottom falls out.

·   Win tripod. Never use it.

·   Discover Ralph Gibson book, Déja Vu. Switch to Tri-X, push to ASA 1600, underexpose, overdevelop. Grain. Contrast. Snap.

·   Take darkroom course at Focal Point, Vancouver. Having taught from front of classroom for five years, sit in back. Fellow students chat and doodle. Feel instructor’s pain.

·   Take weekend workshop with Ralph Gibson. Says, How I get that look to my girlfriend’s flesh is, I  focus one-quarter of an inch below the surface of her skin.

·   Receive 28mm lens as wedding present. Ignore it for a year, then use nothing else.

·   First solo show. The college where I work. Fifty-four black and white Ilfospeed  8 x 10’s. The week leading up: eight hours a night in the darkroom, four p.m. to midnight, brain dying, eyes still alive, hands with minds of their own.

·   Wear out first Autoreflex T, buy another.

·   Wear out second, buy Canon EOS A2, with 28mm and an 80 for portraits. 80 a wonderful lens, autofocus silent as a whisper. Never use it.

·   Take four-month sabbatical, travel to South Seas. With huge backlog of undeveloped black & white, decide to shoot slides. Try Fujichrome Velvia. Never return to Kodak.

·   Start getting the Milnes in North Vancouver to make Cibachrome prints. Awesome results. Begin shooting from kayak. Nicomen Slough, Stave Lake, flat water.

·   Cost of Cibachromes becomes prohibitive. Purchase computer, purchase film scanner, purchase Epson Photo 1200 printer.

·   Continue shooting from kayak. Become more adventurous. Fraser River, upstream from Mission. Secure camera in watertight bag when going gets rough. Dump kayak in shallow rapid. Bag not watertight.

·   Buy second EOS A2. Purchase Epson 2200 printer, purchase Adobe Photoshop, purchase Epson Premium Luster paper, begin making archival prints. Suffer moderate to severe Cibachrome withdrawal.

·   Take Photoshop digital darkroom course, discover Unsharp Mask. Cibachrome withdrawal almost gone. 

Curriculum Vitae

Solo Shows:

Small Group Shows:

Group Shows: