This website is an evolution of my career - from “My Start” - to Paris, New York and Los Angeles. It represents some of the challenges photography often presented and the success I sometimes have had as an artist.  These images are just a small sample of my work. I continue to shoot…think…create…

I grew up in Los Angeles where my parents were in the business of designing and manufacturing clothing. I remember seeing billboards of my father’s dresses in and around L.A. I also remember my mother’s attention to detail in the interiors of our homes and all the fashion magazines that were around. At a young age I liked to look at them and got into spotting my favorite photographers and models.  My father was a photography hobbyist and let me use his Rolleiflex camera when I was about 10. I guess with all of the photography, fashion and design influences around me, my future was set. 

By the time I was a teenager I was on to other things like school, cars and sports. Then, in my late teens I re-discovered photography.  I completed several years of college and wanting a more intense photography education; I applied to and got into Art Center. It was an important part of my life, learning key technical aspects of the craft.  After a year, impatient to get to work, I left Art Center and lived on my own surrounded by roommates and friends who were either artists or aspiring actors. 

I landed a job shooting large-format still life photography for a company that produced catalogs for department stores. One day they called and said the photographer who was booked to shoot a fashion layout had cancelled. With a high-priced cover model on her way in from New York, they asked if I would step in. Of course I said yes!  The only problem was…I wasn’t sure what I was doing since I had never photographed fashion before. Luckily the model told me where to put the light. I followed her advice and thanks to her, I pulled it off!  This was my first taste of fashion shooting and I realized it was the direction I wanted to take.

Shortly afterward I had the opportunity to go to Paris with a French stylist, Anne-Marie, who was a close friend. I thought it would be an interesting experience and a way to possibly further my career. It was an awakening to another culture and photography in the fashion capitol of the world. I didn’t work because I was too inexperienced and intimidated by it all. And worse, my cameras were stolen!  Yet being there sparked a fire in me that was to shape my career for decades. The Parisian environment was like a “finishing school” and I was highly influenced by the great photographers who had been there before me…Guy Bourdin, Helmut Newton, Sarah Moon, Barry Latigan, Barbieri, Toscani, David Bailey and others. It propelled me to the next level in my photography and set the stage for my return to Los Angeles to complete a portfolio. 

I was broke when I returned but a month later got a call from Sarah Moon whom I had met while in Paris. She asked if I would help her crew with a production in Los Angeles. With the money I made, I bought a new 35mm Nikon and launched the testing I hoped would take me back to Paris. I worked hard at it, working twice a month with two models, Amy and Pam. To support myself I took a job as a waiter but was so bad at it I only lasted a week! As luck would have it, the very day I was fired, I got a call from Warner Bros. Records to do an album cover. I started picking up freelance jobs with more record labels and magazines – A&M Records, Capitol, Playboy and others.

I had the good fortune to work with some of the most talented art directors in the business, including John Cabalka, who thought I had a European approach and sensitivity in my photos and lighting.  Different than the American style of the time, I continued to experiment, trying to find the essence of what I had experienced in Paris. After two years of testing and doing jobs as they came my way, I decided it was time to give Paris another try. I left L.A. once again – ready, determined – with a series of conceptual images I thought would get me work. 

Two of the first people I showed my portfolio to upon my return to Paris was Sarah Moon and her husband - publisher and art director, Robert Delpire. They invited me to their home for tea and asked me where my book was. I think they were surprised when I pulled it out of my shirt pocket – 36 35mm Kodachrome slides –  but they immediately saw the energy in them!  Sarah picked up the phone and called Elle Magazine. A few days later I met the art director who showed my work on a projector to all of the editors.

I was staying in a small hotel in the 5^th Arrondissement with a telephone in the hallway. Messages were taken by the owner of the hotel who would leave them under the door.  About a week after my meeting with Elle, they called to book me on my first job. I was out and the owner didn’t give me the message until two days later.  When I called Elle back they had already given the job to someone else! Heartbreak! But… they assigned me another story and I was on my way.

Anne Marie’s influence and Sarah’s call to Elle were the two big breaks of my life that changed it forever. I will always be grateful for their generosity and help in launching my career in France. It then took years of determination and love of photography to stay the course. 

From then on, I shot on a weekly basis for French Elle for over a decade, and on assignment for Italian Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue Homme and other European magazines, shooting hundreds of stories. I also began picking up work for major advertising that has sustained me throughout my 30 years in photography. Having worked not only in Paris but also in New York, Los Angeles and 20+ countries throughout the world, I consider myself a classically trained photographer capable and comfortable in many different arenas of conceptual fashion, beauty, entertainment, portraiture, catalog and still life. What I mean by classically trained is that I learned the art of photography through film and lighting – before digital. Control of light and knowledge of lenses and cameras without the benefit of “post” is what I learned and excelled at. Looking back, I wish there had been digital as a tool but I would not be the photographer I am today if there had been.  

Today, I am digital savvy and embrace the options a digital environment can bring to photography. Pulling from my vast experience, I continue to enjoy the people, fashion, artistry, beauty, lighting, and all the other factors that make each project unique - from editorial pages to  advertising – and try to infuse the collaboration with both experience and originality.