The Beginning

Every photographer has a beginning and though I didn't realize it for many years my interest in photography began very early when as a child a favorite pastime was pouring through the family photo albums occupying space on the bookshelf in our spartan living room.

It was the early sixties and though our family was rather poor (financially speaking) we had two Brownie Hawkeye cameras complete with flashes - I still remember the 'pop' and the wonderful smell that filled the air when the bulbs went off, even the touch of the swollen blue bulb seemed somewhat, shall I say, erotic? An uncle of mine had a wonderful Leica rangefinder with which he shot beautiful slides that he would share on a screen in his basement during the long Canadian winters. I used to love to handle that camera and look through its finder, hoping one day to have one of my own.

During my fifth winter I snapped my first photographs, little knowing the hold photography would one day have upon me. Here is a scan of that first picture I can remember making, an image of a snowman my sister and I had made in our front yard.