My Story

Having started walking myself to school at the age of six or seven, I discovered that walking not directly home but aimlessly exploring town after school afforded me the privacy, solitude, and peace I had no idea I needed to avoid the constant onslaught of the "education" (at home and at school) I was beginning to suffer, that I believe we all suffer as children. The empty streets I frequented were not "spiritually" empty, but instead, they presented me with an energy that felt not just loving and non-judgemental but full of mystery. It has taken me almost my entire life to understand that, and why I have always found my peace while walking the streets. Enter photography twenty-plus years later.

I started taking pictures in the 80s in Manhattan, NY, walking around with a 4" x 5" Toyo field camera ready mounted on a very light Tilt-All brand tripod and over my tolerant right shoulder; I took a decades-long hiatus after eight or nine years of that for an alternate career in physical therapy, and have recently rekindled my love for taking photos in this heavenly city of San Francisco, where most neighborhoods can be a visual feast, full of surprises of light and color, and incredible architecture.

Recent Work

After twenty years of not even owning a camera, I began retaking pictures, casually and with my iPhone 3, just so that I could share with friends and family back East the breathtaking landscape I was witnessing as I criss-crossed the beautiful country side while living in Washington State. The great American highway lives there. Driving my Subaru became a dreamy romance with the road as it led me to start playfully taking pictures as I went, and without stopping, through my windshield and side windows — it was that or pulling over every fifty yards. Hence, the beginning of my “Drive-By” Series.

Presently, in San Francisco, I am rediscovering my long-standing love and need for the street, aimlessly walking in intimate relationship with the city's quieter neighborhoods, but not without the occasional, unavoidable, iconic excursion.

Grief led me to find some refuge in photographing more frequently again. With my late wife's early disappearance due to cancer, in the short four years together, we both learned to juggle joy, grief, and curiosity in our virtual hands. I say with certainty I have painstakingly learned to appreciate the inevitability of this most unwelcome yet inescapable duality: Joy and grief share the same sidewalk at once. The great Camus once suggested: "Live to the point of tears."

A happy twist, a relief, really, for me this time around: my photography no longer needs to aspire to be art. I no longer need to claim to be an "artist" or even a "photographer." I love walking the streets of San Francisco as much as I once loved walking in Manhattan many years ago, but now just taking visual notes along the way.

“Algunas veces, al doblar una esquina o cruzar una calle, me ha llegado, no sé de donde, una racha de felicidad.” -Jorge Luis Borges

Early Work

From 1983 to 1985, I took courses at the International Center of Photography in New York City and graduated from the General Studies Program. Shortly after, I purchased a 4x5 Toyo Field Camera and started photographing the streets of Manhattan until 1990. You can see a small selection of these early images in the Archives section.

During these early years, I worked as a C-Print technician for several photo labs in New York City, including Frank Tartaro Photo Lab, which may have been one of the last to produce dye transfers. I printed all my printed work from my large format camera. Nowadays, with the new technology I prefer to farm the work out, when needed.

Exhibitions:

1990 - OK Harris Gallery, NYC

1990 - 92nd St Y, NYC (group show)

1988 - MIRA Gallery, Stockholm, Sweden

1986 - International Center of Photography's Faculty Gallery, NYC

Collections:

The New York Public Library’s Photography Collection includes two of my Manhattan images, acquired by then the collection’s photo curator, Julia Van Haaften.