Collections

I've been making images since second grade, when I started taking a Kodak Instamatic and flash bulb to day camp. That experience taught me every shot mattered and each image is able to tell a story.

From the '70s through the mid-'90s, I shot mostly black and white film and printed in a closet converted darkroom. In 1995, I was lucky enough to happen upon a color photography class at The School of the Art Institute Chicago – I immediately signed up. It was just an excuse to access their photo lab as I no longer had the drive to continue processing my own film and prints. After seeing what I could really do in a professional wet lab, I switched to medium format color transparencies: first a Yashica Mat-124G, then a Mamiya 7ii system working exclusively with Kodak Ektachrome 64. Thousands of hours in the lab shaped everything I know about color. In 2008, I stopped using the color lab when my second child was born, and the color lab was shut down completely in 2012. I ended my break from photography when in 2016 I needed a digital camera that could capture video at 4K making my way to the Fujifilm system.

I'm also a collector have had a heavy influence in building an extensive collection – from Kertesz to Goldin. I've also had the pleasure of serving as both a juror and judge for a major Chicago art fair operator and was most recently one of only three judges at a northshore Chicago art fair with over 250 artists.

The colors you see in my art are real and come from just a single frame capture – no blending or color grading – it's all real.