EARLY LEANINGS

I had my Olympus OM-10 for a little over a year or so when I grabbed this shot. I was working for a military contractor and caught this fellow employee (Steve Scholla - are you still around?) digging through library files for some information in December 1979.

At the time I think all I still had was the OM-10 and a 50mm f1.8 lens that came with it. It was one of the first images that show a little photojournalistic flair that proved to be what I was going to be as a photographer.

While I did some portrait and wedding shoots over the next few decades I always came back to carrying a camera and watching for images that made me want to hit the shutter button. The next 20 years finally brought me to stringing for a little Florida weekly (as well as their first contract photographer and their only staff photographer before the economic collapse in 2008) that was the most enjoyable working time in my adult life.

The only other job I held that could match the excitement of being a news photographer was the time I served on board US Navy fast attack submarines.