I am a photographer and writer with a distinct approach to my life and work. Like many photographers I started in school, eventually moving on to lighting for film and television in my 20’s. The world of motion picture production, with its continuous lighting and on set video monitors, was a revelation to a young darkroom-bound still photographer. In 1996, enthralled by video and wanting to branch out on my own, I joined the family construction business with the hopes of obtaining easy financing and abundant free time for my own short films but got mired in the typical day to day concerns of that life and never produced a single flick.
Bottle Session: Nevada City, California 2021 Photo Credit: Steve Baker
On a climbing trip to Yosemite in 2001, I encountered my first digital still camera and all my plans were turned upside down. Staring into that first LCD screen I couldn't believe that someone had combined the best of both video and photography into the immediacy that makes digital so attractive. I spent a few years reacquainting myself with a still camera and the specifics of digital in particular. At some point, I came across motion blur...
In 2008, deep in debt and a housing crisis looming, I managed to sell my house and business and headed for the fall colors of the East to perfect the motion blur techniques I started in California. I arrived with less than $800 in my pocket and spent a desperate season roaming and shooting the steep, wooded hills of West Virginia before moving on to upstate New York. Except for the winter of 2009 where I worked at a lodge for room and board outside of Lake Placid, I lived in a van doing odd jobs for locals all the while shooting the rivers, brooks and colored landscapes of the High Peaks region in the Adirondack Mountains with many side trips to the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont.
I returned to California in 2011 and immediately began applying the lessons learned on the road to the wooded east side of Black Hill above the town of Morro Bay. I also stayed busy with many trips to Yosemite Valley shooting around the banks of the Merced River and three extended road trips to the Eastern Sierras in 2014, 2015 and 2017. At home, I began experimenting with motion blur on interior still life, using my collection of blue and green glass bottles in the windows of my studio.
Currently I’m living in Nevada City, California printing my work and writing about my time in the mountains and on the road.