I am completely self-taught in photography. Neither of the two colleges that I attended had at the time photography departments or even offered any photography courses. The closest I came to finding something related to my eventual profession were two art history courses and an economics class. But the lack of formal training never mattered to me because I was driven to find my own way in photography. Almost from the start I wanted to approach it from an artistic viewpoint instead of a purely commercial one. Had I taken photography courses in college I believe I would have been ruined.

Photography has fortuitously fitted my lifestyle, being as I am an iconoclast, a romantic, an independent mind. The love and admiration I had for women when I began to photograph them so long ago has only intensified through the years. I have been most privileged to have met some wonderful, fascinating
women and I have always tried to honor them by photographing them with respect and dignity
(and sometimes with an occasional whimsical touch).

I still work only with film. I do not use digital cameras. I process all of my black-and-white film myself. And I produce all of my prints individually by hand in a traditional darkroom. Any handcoloring is done solely by me. I use no assistants in either my photography or darkroom work. I am very aware that photography has evolved into digital formats. I intend to resist that and remain a traditionalist with my old-fashioned darkroom. Just as handtinting died out long ago that is now occurring to film and darkroom processes. I am more of an artist than a commercial photographer at this stage, so I will be one of those people who strives to keep the traditional methods alive.  This inadvertently helps set my work further
apart from other photographers who are capturing and producing their images by digital methods.

Having started in the early 1970s photographing the nude in Savannah, GA, I now consider myself to be
a pioneer of professional fine art nude photography in the Southeastern United States; if not the entire Southeast, then in Georgia and most definitely the first in Savannah. I have researched this to some extent and have not been able to identify other professionals from my region photographing the artistic nude before the 1970s. In the area of handcolored nudes I also believe I pioneered that genre in this part of America.

The type of photography I specialize in has frequently been misunderstood or maligned in our culture. I believe I have become wise enough to know I will not be able to alter many people's already formed perceptions.  I can only hope to reach out and speak to those who understand the language I am using.  I shall always try to show those who want to see that life and love are the greatest gifts we have. We tend
to lose sight so often when daily minutiae consumes us and materialistic culture surrounds us. I
embrace materialism primarily when it is necessary to sustain or advance my work. My work certainly
is not vital to the continuation of the world but I maintain that without any art to view, hear, touch,
contemplate that our existence would be made bleaker than it often is for some.

It has always been an incredibly difficult struggle to present artistic nude photographic imagery, notably in
the Deep South where I am based. Looking back on where and how I started my photography of the nude I am slightly amazed. The South, and specifically Savannah, Georgia, has not been supportive of my artistic endeavors. I began creating my photography in the early 1970s in a hostile artistic environment.
There was no financial support or even any other form of encouragement for me to develop my talent.
Models were scarce to locate.  Once the photographs were created there were few, if any, outlets for
exhibiting them. From 1978-1985 I was a co-owner of a thirty member artist cooperative gallery in a main
tourist location in downtown Savannah. Almost from the outset of placing my photographs on the wall and bin space allotted me I was attacked by a small group of elderly female painters who took unbridled
exception to my work. Though we were all supposedly equal in the co-op gallery structure my work
was constantly criticized because of the nudity.  My photographs sold but mainly to the out-of-town patrons. I tolerated the abuse for seven years because I believed in what I was doing and was determined
to make inhabitants of my native city aware of a form of photography most had never before seen. But
in that gallery I was outnumbered. I was running my photography studio single-handedly and often
lacked the time and energy to constantly argue with other artists in the gallery about the validity of my
work. Most of my detractors were older, married, women with husbands who financially supported
them and allowed them the freedom to pursue their painting of the seascapes and park fountains that
usually comprised their subject matter. I reached a point where I was exasperated with having to
constantly defend my choice of subject matter - female and male nudes - and left the gallery in disgust.
It had been fellow artists condemning my work.  And often the images they targeted were among my best sellers, and today over twenty-five years later have been proven to be among my most popular. During
the time I was in the co-op gallery I had a solo exhibition at another gallery in Savannah where I showed
work that was a bit more daring than what I displayed in the co-op and got a mainly favorable review
in the newspaper by the paper's art critic. And I sold several pieces and got some private commissions.
At the same time in another part of Savannah in a different gallery, one which I partially owned, other artists were complaining about me.

In the late 1980s I was given the opportunity to present a new solo exhibition entitled "The Last Savannah Nudes" at a local art college in one of their main art galleries. Three months before the exhibition was to open I was summoned to meet with the gallery director, a young woman who was relatively new at her
job with the college. She had stated in writing seven months earlier that I was to present the exhibition
at a specific date and location. At the meeting she stunned me by stating the college was canceling my
exhibition.  I asked, of course, why. She stated matter-of-factly that my work was "too controversial for
Savannah". I said it was the same work I showed her last Spring.  She said that if it were more like
Edward Weston's that there would be no problem.  I told her I was not Edward Weston and she knew
that when she approved the show. Most gallery directors, seasoned or not, would have stood up to the college's administration and defended my right because her word had been given to me in good faith. But
when the administration learned of my exhibition being put on the next year's calendar the inexperienced
gallery director was told to pull the plug on it. It then took me a lot of effort to secure another venue at a different college over eighteen months later in 1990. And even then I encountered obstacles because the
Student Union which controls the purse strings rejected my exhibition proposal but the college's Art Department generously granted me the gallery space.

I found better acceptance away from Savannah in major national photography publications and art
galleries in other cities. A lot of time and effort goes into those pursuits and I am a one-person operation
with no agent or manager to assist me.  At periods, I have found some local galleries with owners who
were not only willing to represent me but who supported my efforts with words of encouragement. But
even then my photography still mainly sells to non-local patrons.  This is why the Internet has been
welcomed by me. It has freed me of Savannah and the Deep South in general.  It has been one of the
most important events in my professional life.  It has been said that next to film-making, photography is
probably the most expensive medium for an artist to undertake.  From my experience I hold that to be
true. As a native Southerner I would have liked to have found local and regional supporters to help me
defray that financial burden when I was starting out and then maturing as an artist. But I have managed to survive artistically without them.  I choose to live here so I take responsibility for that.

On a more personal level, I am single and have no children. I am a vegetarian, a lover of art and music. I practice meditation multiple times daily and enjoy gardening. I love women and am dedicated to capturing and creating beauty with my camera. I live a simple life in a world I began creating apart from the general rat race when I was in my early 20's. It has always been paramount to me to stay true to myself and not compromise my ideals.

I am not that computer literate, but in keeping with my habit of solitary independence I have created this website entirely by myself.  I acknowledge my limitations.  Fortunately, my photography skills are light years beyond my computer skills. This is, admittedly, not a slick or refined website but given my sparse html knowledge it has to suffice as my personal endeavor to display my life's work on the web. I have
intentionally made this site appear unlike most other professional artists' websites not only in design but
in content, particularly the text portion of it. With what remaining time I have left as an artist I would
rather spend it making additional prints from my archives or doing more handcolored prints than
expanding my computer-website skills. And there is always one more model to meet and photograph.

To read some thoughts about my approach to photography and Life, please click here

To view some mostly informal candid photographs from my history, please click here.