one of my favorites

I've been asked from time to time, "do I have a favorite image"...I have a few, but here is one of my first favorites...it was sometime in 1997 and I had just bought my first digital camera...prior to this I had (and still have buried in the attic somewhere) an olympus 35mm film camera...but digital...yeah, no more film, no more film processing, freedom to just shoot and shoot and shoot...if I didn't like something, all I had to do was hit the delete key...what a rush...

for those that don't know me that well, let me try to put things into perspective...in 1979 I started my graphic design firm...you know, designing brochures, ads, direct mail stuff, logos, basically anything that might be printed on paper...that's what put food on the table (and occasionally still does)...so here I am just minding my own business, designing away...life goes on, some good, some not so good...bumble, bumble, bumble and all of a sudden it is 1997...I am getting restless, bumble turns to stumble, my design is stagnating and I am just not feeling the burn...I realize there is something missing and before I begin to see myself turning a corner...convergence is starting to catch up with me...what I think I mean is, computers had become very sophisticated design tools, digital cameras were the new toy, the digital revolution was in full swing and all of a sudden I find myself just falling into an exciting new way to be creative...the missing pieces just magically appear and the puzzle is starting to put itself together...you might notice that I've made no mention of being a photographer...design is what I did and do...the camera just became an extension of what was missing in my head...this was my missing link, so to speak...I could now take my design further than I had ever done previously...the camera was a sort of hand held scanner...it gave me a new way to approach my design work...somewhere over the next five years my images became my first priority and the path to where I am today was formed...

I consider this my first digital art success...I created it for no other reason than to please myself...then when I purchased my wide format printer it was the first large piece I output...it hangs on the wall behind one of my work tables in my studio...I still get a warm feeling everytime I look at it ...

"broad shoulders"