Welcome!
I am a business analyst in Minneapolis, Minnesota who enjoys artistic endeavors in my spare time. For as much as I like logic and math, I find that I need to exercise my right brain in my free time to counterbalance the intense, analytical work that I do during the week.
Photography is a life-long favorite medium, ever since my mom gave me my first camera (a Kodak Instamatic) on my eighth birthday. While I enjoy taking pictures of all kinds of subjects from skyscrapers to seashores, most of my work is nature photography. I often photograph birds simply because they tend to be more visible than most mammals, but you will find pictures of just about any critter I come across that will hang around long enough for me to get a good shot in.
When the critters aren’t cooperating, I look for landscapes and wildflowers. Once in a while, pictures of people sneak in, though I’m less likely to take pictures of people. Mainly because people care what they look like.
I’m not a professional photographer, and I suspect my style is not one favored by pros or photo competitions. I like my pictures to be more rugged than what seems to be in fashion these days. I’m thoroughly uninterested in Photoshopping out stray branches, or caring too much if the lighting is falling perfectly on my subject. That is not how I see the world around me. The world around me is full of branches and animals half hidden in shadow and behind leaves, and this is what I want to capture. While I can appreciate the technical beauty of an isolated bird on the branch and detailed pictures in which you can see each individual feather, I simply don’t care about those things enough to do the work required to emulate that style.
Rather, I like going on walks to see what I can stumble into. My pleasure as a photographer is in the experience of being outdoors and discovering the surprises that wait around the bend, unknown until you go there and see something you never expected. I often have a split second in which to capture my subjects before they’re gone, and I don’t have the patience to pick out a particular spot and sit there, waiting for an animal to return and move into precicely the correct location for my photo. Nor do I have the patience to do a lot of Photoshop manipulation to edit out the “imperfections” in what I captured. Real life is messy. Learn to live with and appreciate it for what it is–that’s my philosophy. I’d rather find my way in the tangled underbrush than inhabit artificial perfection.
Last winter, when it was too cold and snowy for long walks with a camera to be enjoyable, I turned to colored pencil drawings. Although I did a lot of pencil sketches as a child, I’d never explored colored pencil before. I find that I enjoy that medium, and while it takes much longer to produce those drawings than to take and process pictures, you will find a drawing here now and then. Mainly in the winter, though. For the time it’s nice enough in Minnesota to be roaming around, I’m too busy with my camera and my vegetable garden to spend time with a sketch pad.
Anyway, welcome to my site. I try to put up something new once a week, generally on the weekends. I hope you enjoy what you see, and if you do, that you stop in again. Thanks for taking the time to look at my work. I truly appreciate your visit!