I’ve been a creator as long as I can remember.  While most boys grew up wanting to be a policeman or fireman, I wanted to be a “copy artist”, whatever I imagined that was.  I must have foreseen the enormous market potential of redrawing Peanuts cartoons.

When I was eight my grandmother bought me an oil paint set and a canvas on cardboard and I proceeded to paint a landscape which hung in her bedroom for many years.  Three years later I placed third in a nation-wide back-of-the cereal box coloring contest, and my artistic career was off and running.

Later in my high school art classes I focused on my lettering brushes and 1-Shot Sign Painters enamels while painting signs for local businesses.  As a senior I hired on as a sign painter at a nearby sign shop called Artistic Signs. However, my advertising sign and truck lettering career came to a swift end after graduation in 1971 when I got a “real job” at a local steel mill, then on to unloading trucks at the local J.C Penny before receiving a letter from the President of the United States in spring of 1972 with the heading “Order to Report for Induction”.

I had been drafted into the US Army to report on June 21, 1972. For the next two years, I forgot all about art and creativity.  I just wanted to survive the “loss” of  two years of my life.  At just 19 years old, it seemed like a lifetime.

Just before my discharge in 1974, I went to the Post Exchange (PX), and picked up my first film camera, a Minolta SRT 102.  I had always been interested in photography, usually taking over the family Kodak Instamatic 100 on our summer vacations, but this was the first exposure (no pun intended) to ISO (ASA), film speed, aperture and shutter speed.  I was hooked on the technology more than the art, and it showed in my photography.

Later that year I began attending Junior College majoring in Art where acrylic painting on hard-board was my focus.  My acrylic painting “City Cycling” was selected “Best of Show” at the year end exhibition.  Although I tried incorporating photography into other aspects of my work, it never panned out and I quickly abandoned the camera as an artistic tool.

After meeting my wife and marrying in 1977, I purchased a Nikon FM 35mm SLR camera with a kit 50mm lens, then a Nikon D90 DSLR in 2009.  Along the way I earned a degree in Manufacturing Technology Management and worked as an Engineer for nearly twenty years before retiring.

Before entering retirement I purchased my Nikon D850 and several lenses, started my website, and launched my business, 1632 Photography.  Although I’ve done several weddings and portrait shoots, I really find myself when I wander with my camera shooting landscapes and cars, old buildings and nature.