Check out the podcast about me - https://wildvirginia.org/outdoor-photographer-talks-about-getting-closer-to-nature/

 

 

Nature has always been an important part of my life.  Growing up, I could go to the woods, as close as across the street, and I could find peace and solitude, my center and my God.

 I had the fortune to grow up near the mountains of Virginia, one of the most beautiful places in the world.  But as I grew up, I watched more and more buildings go up.   Where I could once walk all day without ever seeing a paved road became office buildings and malls.  When I was 12 I went camping in an area where the nearest store was 10 miles away.  When I was 35, that area was suburbia with housing developments and convenience stores on every corner.  When I was 15 I played a small part in saving a piece of land from developers that I will always know as Burling Tract.  Today it is known as Scott’s Run Nature Preserve and is one of the few unspoiled pieces of land on the Potomac River a stones throw from Washington D.C.  That is still one of my proudest achievements.    

 All in all, though, I am a quiet person.  I don’t play the role of activist well.  I can barely read the all too true stories of impending loss in the nature magazines today.  But I can do something.  I can record the beauty and possibly inspire those who can fight.  I can be a quiet background support with my art.  This also gives me a selfish reason to walk in the woods today, where I still can find peace and serenity.

About the Art

The majority of my images are based on photographs and then digitally manipulated using Photoshop and various purchased and self-created filters to give a vision of the essence of a scene rather than an exact recoding of the scene. 

Has a neighbor ever remarked upon your garden’s beauty and your response was “it needs to be weeded” or “I should have chosen different flowers for that spot”.  Do you have a tendency to look upon a beautiful scene and only see the flaws?  My work stimulates the viewer to explore more deeply the way beauty is seen and experienced by removing much of the detail and leaving only the essence.  In doing so I not only show you a scene but I also draw your eye to the larger facets that can get lost in an ordinary photograph.  I encourage you to look upon the graceful arch of a single stem, the shape of a barely discernable mountain in the distance, the form in a pile of rocks.

Awards

Virginia Fall Foliage Festival 2022 - Second Place in Photography

J Mane Gallery 2020 Honorable Mention in Landscapes

J Mane Gallery 2020 Honorable Mention in Open

Virginia Fall Foliage Festival 2015 - First Place in Photography

58th Annual Boardwalk Art Festival 2013 - Sand Dollar Award

57th Annual Boardwalk Art Festival 2012 - Sand Dollar Award

Disney Festival of the Masters 2010 - First Place in Digital Art

Halifax Art Festival 2010 - Award of Honor

Images, A Festival of the Arts 2009 - Award of Merit

Oviedo Butterfly and Nature Show 2008 - Second Place in Photography

Orange Audubon Society Kit and Sidney Chertok Nature Photography Contest 2008 - Second Place in Beyond Birds

Lake Mary - Heathrow Festival of the Arts 2007 - Third Place in Photography

Ponce Inlet Festival of the Arts 2007 - First Place in Photography

Lake Mary - Heathrow Festival of the Arts 2006 - Third Place in Photography

Lake Mary - Heathrow Festival of the Arts 2005 - Award of Merit