Taking shots of friends and then developing the film myself in the University of Buffalo photo lab is one of my favorite memories from college. There was no preview screen on the camera or photoshop for quick touch-ups, just endless rolls of film and the smell of those chemical baths. If you make a mistake today you just hit undo, but back in the darkroom days it meant starting from scratch or even totally losing shots for good! Things have changed in so many ways, but for me the emotion and fun of photography is stronger than ever and that’s what I want always to show in my work. After school I drove across the country and settled in the Los Angeles area intent on using my creative talents to make a living. I drove a taxi, worked as a telemarketer, was an extra on TV shows and assisted on photo shoots to make ends meet. One day my fellow telemarketer said I should talk to her friend who was a television editor. Turns out they had a huge project starting and needed an assistant right away. It was the dawn of the digital editing revolution and I was blessed with creativity and a knack for tech so it wasn’t long before I graduated from “gopher” (hey kid, go for a drive and pick up lunch/coffee/a producer from the airport) to assistant editor and and then a few years later to full-fledged editor.
Fast forward 5 years or so and Canon comes out with their first prosumer DSLR, the D60 with a whopping 6.3 megapixel sensor. I was hooked. No chemicals or darkrooms and by now from television editing I had all of these digital skills like Photoshop, compositing, color-correction and processing and most importantly a much more mature, cinematic eye. I had a blast with that D60 shooting friends weddings, trips, headshots for actors, but editing had become my main gig and by that time I was working long hours for the major broadcast networks. I would still shoot for fun, but didn’t pursue it professionally. Then on a trip to New York City my D60 was stolen. I can still see the face of the thief’s accomplice. He looked like a crazy-eyed Dave Chapelle with quite the gift for gab. It was a slick two man job at a Midtown Manhattan bus stop late one night when I was on my way to the airport. Crazy-eyes distracted me while his buddy silently rifled my luggage and made off with the camera case. I had no idea at the time, but that would be just one of many New York City sagas I’d experience because just a few years later I pulled up tent stakes and took the show to the city that never sleeps (no joke). Living the Big Apple lifestyle of chronic trauma disguised as fun and excitement, I learned to accept the constant assault on my nervous system and did what good New Yorkers do, settled in to becoming a functioning neurotic. Editing full time and no photography. Four years without a camera. I missed it and really understood through this experience that I didn’t want to spend all of my time in an edit room disconnected from life and my talent to see and document the world in my unique way with the art of still photography. To build up my psychic defenses and as a natural truth-seeker, I got involved with a yoga community. As God’s providence would have it, they needed photographers to document one of their big festivals so I bought a Canon Rebel, used some old manual lenses my aunt Doreen donated to the cause and was back shooting. The job went amazingly well and there were tons of great photo ops to get my creative juices flowing again. I did more yoga festivals travelling to Taos, NM, Florida and the Berkshires in MA, practiced by doing shoots with models and actors in New York and kept grinding at the full time network television gig. TV was paying the rent (and paying for camera gear) but the work was definitely not feeding my soul. The signs that it was time to make a change were obvious so I marshalled all of my metaphysical acumen and pulled a Houdini-level “Escape from New York.” Made it across the bridge without getting blown up by mines and had the capsules of poison implanted in my neck extracted just before dissolving and killing me. OK, that wasn’t me. It was Snake Pliskin, but I think most Manhattanites can relate! It’s funny because I really loved that movie and had actually met Kurt Russel years before in downtown Toronto while standing in line to buy tickets to The Matrix! The timing of my exodus was impeccable and I got out just 3 months before NYC and the world changed forever. All glory to God!
I became an editor and love photography in large part because I love good, creative film making. One of my first, true Hollywood jobs was for Jack Haley, Jr. who was the son of the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. Golden age of Hollywood royalty. I had some interesting times in that town for sure – drinks and a chat with Tony Curtis at Elton John’s Oscars party, meeting the surprisingly tall Tim Burton at his premiere of “Mars Attacks” in an empty Grauman’s Chinese Theatre lobby and talking winemaking with Francis Ford Coppola were among many interesting synchronistic showbiz experiences. There is magic to that world and being able to meet some true legends and some of my all-time film heroes puts a very surreal icing on my career cake. Although I still love editing, I enjoy it infinitely more now that I’m not stuck high up in a Manhattan skyscraper. Most importantly it feels great having the time I need to slow down and experience more fully the world around me.
In an objective sense a photograph is a visual time capsule, an image representing facts that form the sensorily perceivable fabric of a moment in time and space. Expressing the spirit of an event can be much more illusive and much more valuable to our individual and collective humanity. I believe that true art, or what James Joyce calls “proper art” can be the golden thread that reaches beyond our animal nature and connects us to the divine nature. My goal in photography or any artistic endeavour is to be tuned in to that deeper metaphysical reality through which all existence manifests. Then it becomes possible for art to be a transcendent experience where artist and audience are transfixed, timeless, witness to the essence of eternity and a reality beyond the veils and limitations of this material world.