Photographer since 1983. ExpertPhoto.com since 1998.

I have been a photographer since 1983. I live in Southern California. ExpertPhoto.com has been online since 1998.

Photography found me early. In high school, I was the yearbook photographer, and that's where I really learned the craft — developing film, printing in the darkroom, carrying a camera almost every day. I still carry a camera every day. I keep tripods strapped down in my trunk. Those early years gave me a foundation that no app or preset can replicate: an understanding of light, chemistry, and the quiet discipline of getting things right before pressing the shutter.

In the 1990s, large-format photography changed everything. I fell in love with large-format. Working under a dark cloth, composing on a ground glass that shows the scene upside down and reversed, loading sheet film holders in darkness, and hauling a full kit to a location just to make a handful of frames — it taught me a level of patience and deliberateness I carry into every shoot, regardless of what camera I'm holding. I still own and use large format gear, including a Chamonix 5x7 field camera with a 6x17 roll film back, a Toyo-Field 45CF, and a Linhof Technorama 617S. My main digital body is a Canon R5. I also still reach for a Canon EOS-3 for 35mm film work, and I've recently brought my Minolta X-700 back into the rotation — the same model I used in school.

I love the panoramic format. Whether I'm shooting 6x17 film on my Linhof Chamonix, the latest 3-D printed camera, stitching digital frames from a prime lens on a Nodal Ninja head, or capturing RAW panoramas on an iPhone, the wide horizontal frame is where I feel most at home. I think it reflects the way I see the world — as a long, considered scene with depth and leading lines, not a quick slice. My stitched files routinely exceed 20,000 pixels wide, large enough to print at mural scale while maintaining fine detail. For printing, I use White Wall in Germany — the best lab I've found in over 40 years of making photographs.

Film is still central to my work. Kodak Portra 160 is my most-used emulsion for color, Ilford FP4 Plus for black and white. I've drum-scanned 4x5 and 6x17 negatives, producing files better than anything digital can offer. Fujichrome Velvia 50 in 4x5 sheet film was a formative love — I made some of my most important early images on it, including work at Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá back in 2001 and at casinos at night in Las Vegas back in the late 90s. I understand and respect optical physics, and I have strong opinions about lenses. I prefer EF glass over Canon's newer RF equivalents because I believe in glass engineered to perform optically, not glass corrected by software.

My aesthetic is precise and technical. I am a nerd. I check all the OCD boxes: straight lines, correct level, clean composition, thoughtful framing. I cannot stand the HDR look. I believe in honest, realistic rendering. I previsualize compositions using a viewfinder app, print them, study them, and scout locations multiple times before committing to a shoot. Many shoots take several trips to get the shot I want. Yet alongside all that technical rigor, I've developed a genuine affection for digital watercolor. These are painterly, heavily edited pieces structured to output at 80 inches wide. They are the opposite of my shooting philosophy, and I love them anyway. The process is irreproducible — each one is unique — which is part of the appeal. I've made watercolors from a 7-Eleven in Winchester at 5 am, from the In-N-Out Burger sign in Hemet, from a Disneyland ride I loved as a kid, and from a simple surfer shot in Huntington Beach. They look extraordinary up close.

My subject matter tends to be the things other people drive past. Commercial buildings in desert light. Modest civic architecture. Mobile home parks. Roadside signs. Gas stations. Parking lots. Fire stations. Post offices. I'm drawn to the honest dignity in ordinary places, the geometry hidden in everyday infrastructure, and the way harsh light — especially the midday desert sun that photographers are told to avoid — can carve hard shadow and graphic form out of corrugated metal and stucco. I often carry a camera whether or not I'm planning to shoot, because the best shots tend to arrive unannounced: a line of mailboxes along a rural road, the way morning light hits the east side of an old car dealership, a row of barbecue grills lined up outside Home Depot on a warm afternoon. Every city has a version of itself that most people never see — not the main commercial corridors or the tourist attractions, but the back streets, the aging storefronts, the neighborhoods that predate the freeway, the small businesses that have outlasted every economic cycle without ever becoming famous. That is where I want to be with a camera. The same approach has taken me into residential neighborhoods, down Route 66 through the Mojave, and up mountain roads that most drivers skip in favor of the freeway. Wherever I go, I'm drawn to the places that don't make the highlight reel — the ordinary corners that reward a slow eye and a willingness to pull over. I believe there is worth and beauty in those overlooked places in every city, and I intend to keep proving that.

I am also an avid reader — usually about 30 books per year, with reviews on Goodreads. I run a home network that I built - a geek’s geek. I maintain a YouTube channel covering my photography escapades.

Near the end of 2024, I went through a serious health crisis that forced me to sell nearly all my gear. I had to use a cane. I thought I was done. I believe in Jesus Christ, and I believe that prayer played a real role in what happened next. Slowly and with a lot of work, I recovered — far more fully than I had any right to expect. The camera bags are back in my car, and with the Lord’s help, I have no intention of putting them down again.