Bio

I was born on June 11 in 1952 in Hartford, Connecticut, right in the middle of the baby boom, June 11th being the birthday of two of my favorite photographers: Julia Margaret Cameron and Alvin Langdon Coburn. My father was an avid amateur photographer and his love of the medium carried over to me at an early age. By the time I entered high school I knew I wanted to work in the field of photography. I learned to use the darkroom as a freshman and soon started to produce solarized images in the line of Man Ray. Shortly after creating my experimental images, I encountered a number of pivotal photo books, including The Photographer’s Eye, The Concerned Photographer, Robert Frank’s The Americans, and monographs from Walker Evans and Eugene Smith.

I soon was developing a documentary style of my own, shooting in Hartford and Eastport, Maine on family vacations. In 1967 I bought my first SLR camera, which made my images sharper, both visually and technically. I was painfully shy and photography became my way of speaking what I wanted to say to others. It was my forum.

After a failed year of traditional undergraduate college work, I decided it was time to get trained as a photographer in order to earn a living, as well as communicate deeper feelings. I applied to the School of Visual Arts in New York City and the Art Institute of Boston and was accepted to both. A trip to New York City to explore the SVA ended in me being overwhelmed and frightened. Boston seemed friendlier and in 1972 I enrolled at AIB in a documentary program that included all the foundation courses needed to learn to make a living in the field. After fundamentals, I studied the zone system with Robert Baker (who wrote Ansel Adams’ textbooks) and became comfortable with large format cameras and techniques. What really inspired me was a course in documentary photography taught by Eugene Richards. He encouraged me to find themes to document. I completed a photo essay on Katy’s, a club in Kenmore square, and one on store mannequins. At the same time I taught an introductory course in photography to Harvard students at the Boston Architectural Center, and exhibited my work at Enjay Gallery in Boston and Prospect Street Gallery in Cambridge.

After graduating from AIB, I moved back to Hartford, where I worked as a stringer at The Hartford Courant and taught at The Connecticut School of Fine Arts and Photography. I also did a photo shoot of then Senator Lowell Weicker for The New York Times Magazine. Eventually I found more lucrative work as a staff photographer at CIGNA. Working at CIGNA gave me the chance to meet and photograph celebrities such as Mohammad Ali, OJ Simpson, Gordy Howe, Bob Hope, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Oscar Peterson, and Vic Braden, among many others. Mohammad Ali did me the honor of insisting he knew me from the boxing world.

Though still working at CIGNA, I started an in-depth photo essay entitled Park Story Story. Besides encouragement and time off from CIGNA, I received a grant from The Connecticut Commission on the Arts. Most of the work was done in 1978 and 1979. While shooting on Park and surrounding city streets, I showed my work at a church on Park Street and had two one-man shows at Camera Workers Gallery. My work was acclaimed in the Hartford Courant, and led to later exhibitions at The West Hartford Art League Gallery. I put my heart and soul into this big documentary project and met many fine people in the Park Street neighborhood. The final project was shown at Trinity College Art Gallery, not far from Park Street itself.

I was outsourced by CIGNA several years after completing the project, and soon got another staff photographer job at Hamilton Standard, United Technologies Corp. While there, I was diagnosed with Chronic Lyme Disease. After decades of agony I am finally getting my past work in order and starting to photograph again. The re-birth of Park Street Story brings back many fine memories and makes me proud of this irreplaceable document’s place in history.

I was overjoyed to learn in 2020 that my Park Street Story work would enter the permanent collection of the New Britain Museum of American Art.

Publications

The New York Times, New York Magazine, Architectural Digest Magazine, TV Guide (cover), US Magazine, Discover Maine Magazine, Connecticut Magazine, The Hartford Courant, The Hartford Advocate, The Hartford News, Pro/Contra Photographers in CT, Life in General (corporate newspaper), The Hamilton Standard (corporate newspaper), Focus (award-winning CIGNA publication), numerous CIGNA publications, numerous Ensign Bickford publications

Teaching

Boston Architectural College, The Connecticut School of Fine Art and Photography, CIGNA (seminar series)

Grants and Awards

Connecticut Commission on the Arts Grant, Photographer of the Year from The Connecticut Art Directors  Club,  the Fashion Photographer Award in the Eyes of Laura Mars Contest, Connecticut Magazine Photography Contest (second prize), Connecticut United Way Photography Contest (first in category)

One Person Shows

Prospect Street Gallery, Cambridge, MA; Enjay Gallery, Boston, MA; Trinity College, Hartford, CT; Austin Arts Center; Unitarian Meeting House Gallery, Hartford, CT; Canton Public Library, Canton, CT; Camera Workers Gallery (two shows); Mitchell Gallery, Avon CT; Farmington Valley Arts Center, Avon, CT

Group Shows

New Britain Museum of American Art, Yale University, University of Bridgeport, Art Institute of Boston, Salt Box Gallery, Asylum Street Artists Association Gallery, Gallery on the Green,  Hartford Civic and Arts Festival Photography Gallery