Here I go a picture taker trying to use words to describe himself. I am a Mainer! I gained a love of nature camping with my family from a very young age, and a work ethic mowing grass and shoveling snow at the same time. I have always liked to step back and look at things from different perspectives and am most certainly obsessed with light.
Reading National Geographic gave me my first fascination with pictures and an old Minolta 35mm gave me my first love of mechanical art creation. In high school I shot with film, working for a professional wedding photographer as a second shooter and as a dark room technician making prints. In college I took a short break to get a degree in History and Psychology. It was towards the end of my college career that I found my appreciation for digital photography and met a commercial photographer at the local restaurant where I worked who invited me to take a lighting class he was teaching, even though I was not an art student. I loved the class! This experience opened a whole new world of artistic control and creative collaboration I had never really associated with photography up until this point. Commercial photography I came to understand gives you tools to make better pictures and the knowledge to use those tools I had discovered.
I always made art with photography for my own purposes, still life, landscapes, portraiture, now I was getting a taste of making art for other people. By the time I graduated college I had already been working with and assisting many talented commercial photographers in Southern Maine. We worked on projects for Idexx, Maine Health, Maine Office of Tourism, Maine Medical Center, L.L. Bean, and Delorme, just to name a few of the large companies in need of high-end photography and video in the state. Self-taught is a label people like to use for marketing purposes. I have certainly taught myself a lot through doing, but I have learned more by working with and listening to experienced photographers over many years who have shared invaluable techniques and knowledge with me along the way and taught me the true meaning of being a working photographer, creative professionalism.
As a result of this experience I am very comfortable shooting on location or in a studio situation with professional lighting gear and photographic/video equipment. I own and operate a modern digital photography studio in a classic old mill space with thirteen-foot ceilings that is perfect for portraiture or still life. I like sitting down with my clients and really getting to the bottom of what they need the images I create for them to say and do for their marketing efforts.
A half decade ago I added video to the resume and I really value the way motion and audio can enhance a projects ability to convey a message. This is especially the case for documentary work, where a multimedia approach can really attract a wide audience and add a voice to the narrative. Video is as important as good still photography and I can do both now in conjunction with a clients needs. My recent documentary work has taken me out of the state to places like California, Texas, Spain, Israel and Kazakhstan.
I still make art and now a good portion of my business is commissioned art for both residential and commercial clients. This typically involves a more hands on experience with people who demand a higher quality of finished pieces for their homes or offices. I have a team of seasoned finishing framers who can produce archival pieces on a set timeline. I also do encaustic mixed media painting that I have come to love that adds a painterly quality to my some of my prints.
I have been a member of a local photography group called the Bakery Photo Collective for five years. This group keeps me involved with the Maine art community and broadens my connection with the photography art world in general though our artist in residence program and monthly artist talks. We also produce a yearly group photography show that is the biggest in Maine and has taught me invaluable skills about putting on and running a large successful art show. Basically the collective is a printing shop for serious artists and my experience here has been invaluable in learning how to make the highest quality prints of my art. I do everything by hand to ensure quality.
Well that is me in a nut shell, a freelance artist for hire with serious technical chops and a lot of experience to back it up. I hope you enjoy the website and the images you find on it.