I moved to Grand Rapids in November of 2006 so that my wife, Barb, and I could be closer to our kids and grandkids. Generally it is the kids that move away with new jobs, etc, well, in this case, it was us. I grew up in Northern Wisconsin and my early career was in community education administration and it took me to New Jersey, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Seattle, WA, Tucson, AZ and finally back to Michigan. In tha latter part of my career before I became a professional photographer, I was the Director of Conferences for the University of Washington and The University of Arizona. I became a professional photographer in 1996 after my job ended at the University of Arizona. One telling thing was what a friend of mine at The University of Arizona said to me once, “the only time I see you with a smile on your face is when you have a camera in your hand.”
Photography has always been an interest to me ever since I received my first camera when I was 10 years old. My father was a salesman and always used photography to sell his products, fire protection eequipment. I too, always used photography in all the jobs I had taking photos of the numerous activities I had setup for brochures and newsletters, etc. I even taught desktop publishing classes for The University of Arizona continuing education department.
What was really great is that all my career experiences were a tremendous background for becoming a photographer, particularly the people and organizational skills. Since I had photographed a lot of events, I naturally found weddings to be of particular interest to me. It is the kind of thing with a lot of photographers, once someone knows about your photographic skills, a friend or association will ask you to photograph their wedding. That’s basically how it started with me. In Tucson, I was a founding member of a wedding marketing cooperative which was really helpful for me. My approach has always been to do limited advertising and to let my work speak for itself. So, before moving to Grand Rapids I was photographing 40 weddings a year along with doing family portraits, headshots, corporate events, pets, and product photography.
