I've been a photographer for as long as I can remember. I'm a bit of a cliche, I suppose, in that my first camera was my Dad's hand-me-down Zeiss Ikon medium format bellows camera. It had excellent German optics, but was a little awkward to use. That said, it had travelled the world with my father during his adventures with the British Royal Navy, which took him to most of the world's continents and their finest bars. He loved his life at sea, and, sadly, lived only a few more years after his demobbing, the victim of a heart weakened, perhaps, by malaria contracted in Africa. I have many of the negatives he processed in an onboard darkroom during his travels, and they are indicative of his love for photography and, I suppose, how he influenced me in a very subtle, yet profound way.

During my high school years in the small southern Ontario town of Ridgeway, I never had eyes on being a professional photographer. Instead, I had journalism as my goal, applying to and being invited by Ottawa's Carleton University to join it's journalism program. I promptly moved to the nation's capital, but for a reason that still escapes me decided to make the classic decision to 'take a year off'. Instead of going to university, I was learning the craft of bartending, while discovering my love for the darkroom and a penchant for late nights spent across the Quebec border in Hull. A move to Vancouver in the early 80's saw me begin more formal photographic education through a local college, where I was inspired by the likes of James LaBounty and John Mastromonaco. I went on to teach some courses of my own and, when the program moved to Langara College in 1997 I began teaching nearly full time, eventually becoming Program Coordinator until I relocated to Kootenay Boundary in 2015. And that is where I remain, enjoying a life of farming, photography and a renewed fascination with the written word.