Since retiring in 2009 after 28 years as a township assessor in Lake County, Illinois, I have been a resident of Baileys Harbor, Door County, Wisconsin.

Other than a few adult continuing education courses in photography, I am essentially a self-taught photographer.  My interest in the medium began when I was stationed at the U.S. Army Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California at a time when master photographers Brett Weston and Ansel Adams were living and working in the area.  I have spent time in the darkroom processing prints for my own consumption but have now fully embraced the digitalization of photography.

My inspiration comes from Alvin Langdon Coburn’s infamous 1916 quotation, “Why, I ask you… need we go on making commonplace little exposures that may be sorted into groups of landscapes, portraits and figure studies?  Think of the joy of creating something which would be impossible to classify, or to tell which is the top and which the bottom!”

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy similarly advocated for the systematic application of “faulty” techniques, such as exaggerated perspective, harsh contrasts, optical deformation; cast shadows that overly darken the subject, false tonal values, as true photographic expression. 

Abstract photography deliberately impairs any realistic perceptions yet reveals the hidden beauty of the scene.  Viewing abstracts this way or that, right side up or upside down, from whatever direction, they lose nothing of their impact, beauty, harmony, and order for there is no conventional or optimal angle of observation that would enhance the viewing experience.