sitting by a sage bush in the Colorado Desert, Joshua Tree National Park

I began my photographic career when my family moved from my birthplace of Ottawa, Ontario to a small village (St. Symphorien) in Belgium.  I was fourteen years old when I developed my first roll of black and white film and I continued to study photography on a casual basis throughout my high school years.  Upon entering University I had less time to devote to my photographic endeavors but continued to take pictures for the sheer enjoyment of recording the World around me and my various journeys.  After graduating from the University of Western Ontario in 1992 I made my way out West to Vancouver to explore the possibility of working in the film production business.  A car accident in 1993 cut that career short and I found myself living on Salt Spring Island after losing my job and apartment in Vancouver.  Through the generosity of several islanders I was able to re-visit the dark room environment and begin my photographic portfolio virtually from scratch.  During the past ten years I have had the privilege of exploring the island at my leisure through all of the changing seasons picking up new techniques along the way to better record my interpretation of reality.  I consider myself self-taught for the most part and continue to evolve in my work and my life exploring new themes and new territory all of the time.

My latest undertaking is The Fritz Movie Theatre here on Salt Spring ( www.thefritz.ca ) which I bought in September of 2006.  Although I am devoting less time to my photography these days, what time I do get behind the camera is very special indeed: I shoot almost exclusively with my medium format equipment now and am working more meticulously on finer detailing in my images.  My new works can be seen on my Recent page where I now have a few scans of my medium format photographs up for display.

When it comes to taking pictures, I don't like tricks: I rely on natural lighting for all of my photography and use filters sparingly: either a polarizer or skylight filter can be found covering any one of my lenses, never a "special effects" filter.  My darkroom work is equally devoid of tricks & gimmicks: all of my photographs are printed full-frame (no cropping) with minimal manipulation which suites my style of editing in-camera at the time of seeing and making my photographs.  My subject matter ranges from macro to panoramic; portraits to landscapes; literal to interpretive and includes natural phenomenon, architecture, portraiture, rock climbing, kayaking, aerial, yoga, stock and commercial applications, and general documentary images.  I thoroughly enjoy the entire photographic process and look forward to many more productive years in this most incredible field.

As for equipment, I prefer to use Nikon 35mm equipment and my mainstay for the past decade has been the F3 although recently I've upgraded to an F90x and an F100 body.  After having used a Rollei 6006 for a few years, I have now switched to a Hasselblad 500c that I use primarily for potraiture in the 6x6cm format.  I use Fuji slide films (Velvia & Provia) for my colour photography and Ilford Delta (100/400 ASA) for all of my B & W work.  All of my B & W printing is accomplished on a Kaiser diffusion enlarger with Rodagon lens on Ilford multi-grade papers (gelatin silver resin coated & fibre based emulsions).  My colour prints are all full-frame LED (laserlightjet) C-prints from The Lab in Vancouver and Lens & Shutter in Victoria.