Hmmm…So where do I start on a story about myself? I’m the son of the son of a sailor man. And the son of a daughter of a tailor man. That’s my genealogy in a nut shell. My name comes from both grandfathers!
And that seems to explain my hybrid talents of art and photography, mechanical skills and sense of wanderlust adventure. Always forward thinking and fully in the moment, yet I seem to cling to the analog world. Film cameras, wet darkroom, typewriters, Morse code and amateur radio equipment with moving dials and knobs that turn potentiometers, and stick shift jeep with key locks and manual windows and seats.
A brief summary follows on the rest of this page with links.
You will find visual descriptions with links to what’s going on in my life right now
Photography
My photography website will take you through predominantly black and white images, about half of them from film cameras, and printed in the traditional wet darkroom. You’ll find some color photography as well. Black and white is by far more challenging in ways I describe on that website. I enjoy the convenience of digital photography and producing a pleasing color image. The process leaves me somewhat empty. It just seems too easy to produce a successful image. I miss the challenge from the original craft of photographic roots.
New Book
Next on the agenda is my book “One Day At Cerro Gordo and The American Hotel”. This is a personal photo journey of images, both film and digital taken on one day: October 20, 2018. There’s a story of how I got there and how I didn’t get back there a week after a fire destroyed the crown jewel of the mountaintop ghost town. I describe what I saw, which cannot be replaced or photographed again, while reflecting on the rich history of Cerro Gordo through my imagery, maps, illustrations and time line charts.
In the beginning...
Another Epic Journey
“Another Epic Journey” was a 7260-mile road trip to California in June and July of 2020. The significance of the trip was the 45th anniversary of the First Epic Journey taken in 1975, when I was 21 years old. I traveled with the same partner, but we explored areas that we missed on the first time around. The trip also has some origin to my 2018 visit to the Eastern Sierra Mountains, and Cerro Gordo. Subsequent road trips are planned, now that the Jeep is fully outfitted for long range self-sufficient overlanding.
The Ham Shack
My new hobby is Amateur Radio. Recently I passed my exams and now licensed to transmit around the world as a HAM General Class. All this electronic stuff has always intrigued me. I would (and still do) marvel and anyone licensed to transmit Radio waves around the world. I always admired these Geeks, so smart operating this sophisticated stuff with knobs and dials and meters and tall antennas. I carried two small hand-held transceivers (HT’s) on Anther Epic Journey for emergency purposes but now I am FCC licensed to actually use them. Along with my upgraded Kenwood mobile “Shack” in the Jeep, and some fancy equipment and antennas at both homes, I am looking forward to transmitting on the air waves!
The image on the top of this page was taken along the Burr Trail in southern Utah, on the evening of June 14, 2020. Less than ten hours later The American Hotel in Cerro Gordo, California burned to the ground. The significance of this event lead me to write my book based on a visit I took 20 months prior, that will never be able to be duplicated. I was planning to return to take more pictures, but it vanished over night, after 149 years to the day of its grand opening on June 20, 1871.
The First Epic Journey
The date was July 6, 1975 when I started my First Epic Journey. I was 19 years old, just graduated college and had an itch to go west young man... My 72' Chevy Blazer was outfitted for long range camping and cross country travel. At the last minute travel partners changed and I took off with my neighbor, and we traveled for over two months covering 13,500 miles.
Forty Five years later we teamed up again for some unfinished business in my 2003 Jeep on "Anther Epic Journey"
Bears
Our home in Pennsylvania boarders the Promised Land State Park. Northeastern Pennsylvania is home to the largest population of black bears east of the Rocky's. Every day from early April to mid December, black bears roam up and down the trails behind our house. They are beautiful animals, exciting to watch, and as timid as squirrels. Except for the big males. They hang around and don't run if they spot a human. Always respectful of their place and ours in the park, it is frustrating to want to feed the birds and deer and these clowns show up first and hog all the food. They don't bother us, and we don't bother them. If we are outside cooking and eating there is a mutual respect for each other. We do proceed with caution, even if their behavior is predicable.
YouTube Channel
I have two Youtube videos on my channel. One is a computer painting exercise featuring my photography from One Day at The Colorado Railroad Museum.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxqgYkUnzCk&list=TLPQMjUwMjIwMjHgGSllLTW4-A&index=1
The second video is a rustic bookcase I designed and made from 50 year old pine boards from a sawmill, using no fasteners and finished with coffee grinds and tea leaves mixed into linseed oil .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQY4i7fOcVQ
Both are short 3 minutes slide shows with no commentary.