As a kid I always enjoyed taking pictures, first with our family camera and then later with a Polaroid camera that I received as a Christmas gift. But photography was never really a hobby or something that I considered as a possible vocation.

All that changed in the summer of 1972 when I attended an air show with my parents. I had the family camera and a couple of rolls of film, and had a blast shooting all of the activities of the show. When the pictures were developed, however, I was bitterly disappointed: most of the photos were terrible.

In my frustration, I subscribed to Modern Photography magazine, having never even seen an issue. I assumed that most of the magazine would be technical stuff that I probably wouldn't understand, but a one-year subscription didn't cost much, so I was hoping that I might find something in the magazine that would help me take better pictures.

When the first issue (September 1972) arrived, I sat down to look at it and ended up reading it cover-to-cover… and I understood everything! I had a glimpse into an amazing world of photography that I never knew existed. It was readily apparent that my photos were bad not so much because of my lack of skill but rather because I was trying to take photos that our cheap family camera simply wasn't designed for. I needed a better camera.

Later that summer I purchased of my first SLR, a Russian-made Zenit-E with a 58mm f/2 Helios lens, for about $80. It was the only SLR that I could afford; Japanese SLRs were $150 or more. I had a cousin who was also into photography and had a darkroom in his basement; he taught me how to develop black & white film and make prints. In my senior year in high school (1972-73) I was a photographer for both the student newspaper and the yearbook, which gave me experience in photographing individuals, groups, candids, and sports.

After graduating from high school I continued photography as a hobby. Eventually a friend talked me into photographing his wedding – I tried to tell him that I had neither the equipment or the experience to do a wedding, but he was insistent. The wedding pictures turned out OK, and suddenly I started to get all sorts of requests for commercial work.

I had a long career as a freelance commercial photographer, doing weddings, portraits, and group photos, as well as specializing in sports photography for the local newspaper and college. But eventually I "burned out" on commercial photography and stopped accepting assignments. When my financial situation later took a turn for the worse, photography became too expensive to pursue as a hobby, so I abandoned it altogether, although I kept my equipment.

Twenty-five years later I finally got back into photography. This was in September, 2017, when I purchased a Pentax K-70 digital SLR camera. Going with Pentax was an easy decision, as many of my old lenses will work with it, and the K-70 had all of the features that I wanted at a price that I could afford.

Buying this DSLR made me feel like a kid again, rediscovering the joys of photography! The world of digital photography is vastly different from what I knew back in the days of manual focus film cameras; it's like I went to sleep for 25 years, and when I woke up everything was changed. But I'm delighted to be back!

Published Photos

Below is a list of publications that have featured one or more of my photographs. Only publications from 2017 on have been included.

Pentaxians Yearbook 2018 – 1 photo: Water Fight (Aug 2018)

Pentaxians Yearbook 2019 – 1 photo: Painting with Fireworks (Jul 2019)

Pentaxians Yearbook 2020 – 1 photo: An Approaching Storm (May 2020)

Pentaxians Yearbook 2021 – 1 photo: Making the Catch (Oct 2021)

The Lindsborg News-Record (2020) – 45 photos

The Lindsborg News-Record (2021) – 78 photos

The Lindsborg News-Record (2022) – 9 photos

The Lindsborg News-Record (2023) – 9 photos