My lifelong love of horses began at age seven when a pony arrived for my birthday!
In my twenties, I picked up a camera and decades later,
I picked it up again and haven’t put it down.
A Life Long Love of Horses, Revisited in Retirement
What I remember most about teaching - when I started more than fifty years ago when life felt a little simpler - is the joy. Students arrived ready to learn, fully engaged in whatever we were doing, and the smiles never stopped, both mine and theirs. Capturing those expressive moments on film became a joy of its own. I think I fell in love with photography even more because of my students - seeing the pure wonder on their faces when I showed them an 8x10 black and white print from my darkroom, of a moment they didn't even know I'd captured.
After hearing Freeman Patterson speak in my hometown in my twenties, I made a promise to myself to take a workshop from him ‘one day’. Almost thirty years later, I did. At that first workshop with him, Freeman borrowed my camera to illustrate a point. Even though he took images of the same different sized bottles with the same coloured water, he had a totally different interpretation. It was like watching a magic trick and not knowing how it was done.
I remember thinking later, as I reviewed my images and came to his, was ‘wow, I really did see something different’! I was impressed with myself until I realized the images weren't mine. The ‘aha’ moment for me however, other than being a bit disappointed, was that I realized if I changed the way I saw, I could change what I created.
Today, my camera is a constant companion - a friend that has been beside me through every year of this retirement journey. It has become my passport to new perspectives, helping me find the light in every corner of the world I’m lucky enough to visit. When my camera is with me, I am never alone.
Have camera, will travel.
An Evolving Perspective
For a long time, I thought this website needed to be a place to sell prints. Isn’t that what a photography website is for? Working on this latest update to my site, I realized that in this chapter of my life, it is more about the joy of photography and not so much about the job side of it.
Deciding to make this a tour through my personal photo library gave me direction. A stroll through memories of trips and workshops and friends I’d met along the way. I realized there were three main categories to my work. That made it easier to choose the images I’ve included in the galleries. It really was a time to sit back and enjoy that stroll - I have a lot of photos! I am a firm believer in trial and error, apparently.