I'm a San Juan Islands Washington based photographer focusing on Architecture Photography, Real Estate and Aerial Photography with more than a small amount of passion for Landscape Photography. I'm also a lifelong aviation geek who has flown hang gliders (for a minute), sailplanes and currently holds a part 107 drone license which I use to capture Aerial Photographs for my Architectural, Real Estate and Vacation Rental Property clients.
Growing up as an "Army Brat" I've lived everywhere, and nowhere, well that is until I found the San Juan Islands and I've called Lopez Island my home for the past 20 years.
And although my “formal” training is in Engineering, a BS in Aerospace Engineering, I have had a love of photography for as long as I can remember taking every photography course offered by the Engineering college and working as a photographer for the school newspaper and yearbook.
Upon graduating photography took a back seat as I pursued my Aerospace Engineering career moving from Missouri to San Diego. But it was only the time I spent behind the camera as I was unknowingly learning a skill that I often rely on, the ability to learn and adapt. Apparently, in my opinion, that's what Engineering is all about, figuring out problems and adapting to new situations.
The first 5 years went by in a blissful minute, but the hectic lifestyle of Southern California was slowly starting to take its toll and an unusual fork in the road was headed my way, Sheep Dog Training.
It started out innocently enough, I just wanted a dog for my small home in Ocean Beach. So I bought a Border Collie but quickly learned that a bored Border Collie and landscaping was a terrible combination. So I took lessons to learn about sheep and sheepdog training. At first it was a just a way to try and give my landscaping a chance but I quickly found a love and passion for the dogs, sheep and traveling. So I spent the next 7 or so years training and dog trialing every chance I got. I made frequent trips to the Pacific Northwest and fell in love with its beauty and people. So I jumped at the chance to move to Seattle and I took a contract job working for Boeing on the Joint Strike Fighter.
The Joint Strike Fighter was the best engineering project I had ever worked on and Boeing was fabulous. My 6 month contract lasted a year but Boeing didn’t win the bid so my time there came to a close. I took this unemployment "opportunity" to try my hand as a “professional” dog trainer and Sheepdog Trialer. So I packed my belongings into storage, bought a small travel trailer and hit the road. It was a great choice. I lived simply, gave some lessons and won enough trials to pay my way.
And I might still be doing it today if I hadn’t received a phone call from a friend telling me to come help with the Lopez Island Sheepdog trial. I came, I saw, I fell in love and never left.
A common theme in my life is that I always seem to come back to the things I truly love. And that's what happened with photography. It happened quite innocently when we were house shopping on Lopez Island. I was surprised by the quality, usually bad, of the photographs of the homes we were looking at. Often it was hard to tell just what we might find when we got to the house. Many were far, far nicer than their photos. I kept complaining to our agent that someone should be able to do better than these.
Well I decided that someone should be me and I spent a year shooting, learning and processing Real Estate shots til I was happy with the results.
And photographing Architecture and Interiors turned out to be a perfect combination of my love of photography and infatuation with buildings and spaces. Plus it dovetails nicely with my passion as a Aerial and Landscape Photographer.