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Personal Profile and Artistic Statement
I am a freelance photographer based in Nagoya, the nucleus of the third largest metropolitan area in Japan and the industrial powerhouse of the nation. I have lived here for 20 years and provide photography to a wide range of clients, both domestic and overseas. As Nagoya is centrally located and serves as a hub for air, rail and expressway traffic, I have easy access to practically all of Japan.
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 Although my own personal interests in photography range from the aesthetic to the technical, professionally I see it as a means of communication. I take photographs to tell a story, convey a message, impart a thought...and (for my clients) sell a product. My purpose in these pages is to display my photography to any who are interested and to sell myself as a photographer to buyers of photography.
 I admit that I am a generalist, not specializing in any one area of photography. As the market in Nagoya is limited, not in the QUALITY or VARIETY of work, but in QUANTITY of work available, I have the chance to work in many different fields. Some areas that I work in most often are architecture, magazine illustration, stage and theater, and advertising.
For the foreign client in need of photography from Japan, I offer the advantages of being well-established in the area, fluent in English and Japanese, fully equipped in all traditional formats, centrally located, and mobile (and if you need it in a hurry, there is a FedEx office close by).
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Personal Work
 I studied photography at Southern Illinois University under the tutelage of such gifted mentors as Dave Gilmore and Chuck Swedlund. I'm afraid that my personal work has never risen above the sophomoric level that I was doing when I was at school, but I am fascinated with the hands-on process of photography and my personal work often reflects this. For example, one of my last projects in school was to put dye-tranfers onto metal - copper and brass - plates. Therefore, it is difficult to present the work on the computer screen.
Over the last ten years, I have been involved in putting accidental color onto black-and-white photographs. This is not hand-coloring, but the gross application of  paint - water-color, acrylic, etc. - onto fiber-based prints with brush, fingers, rags, whatever. One approximate example of this is represented by the popup image on the right. Examples of some of my most (commercially) successful artistic work can be found the collections of private individuals, the permanent collection of the Noritake Gallery (of the renowned Noritake China), and the U.S. Consulate in Nagoya.
I also like the feel and weight of fiber-based papers, so I will often deliberately dry them so that they curl and mount them without mattes so that the curl is both visible and palpable.
In a recent exhibition that I participated in with four other local, foreign-born (English, Welsh, and Australian) artists, I used a paint-on emulsion on a seemingly fragile, almost transparent washi Japanese paper. After exposing and developing this paper in the usual manner for BW prints, I layered them over standard color photos of complementary images.
I ended up with finished photographs that had texture, depth, the artificiality of black-and-white with the naturalness of color, and the inherent consideration required when putting together more than one object, idea, or image into such a collage.
Right now, in a William Gibsonesque* Lotek-like endeavor, I'm experimenting with scanning photos into the computer and printing them out with an ink-jet printer onto paper  that I have made myself from recycled milk cartons. The recycled paper I've made will not hold up to the multiple immersions in chemicals and water required when using a paint-on emulsion and regular development, so the ink-jet printer is an excellent alternative.
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Respect
One unique aspect of photography, as opposed to other arts, is that it must have a real-life subject for the camera to capture on film (or electronic digital media). I respect, appreciate, and admire all photography that treats the subject of the photograph with respect, appreciation, and admiration. I enjoy the creativity of the studio, the grandure of nature, and the personality and individuality that is revealed in photographs of people, whether in portraits, fashion illustration, or the classic documentary photo-essay of the old LIFE magazine.
Although I have many favorites when it comes to photography, it has been the work of Elliot Erwitt that have I admired the most since I first discovered it in my college days. He  exemplifies the qualities I wish I could achieve. In every aspect of the medium, he excels--technology, passion, sensitivity, honesty, humor, professionalism.
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Photo of Me
Me
at the age of seven (click for enlarged view). The "camera" was not my first, but the first one that was recorded for posterity. For you technophiles, the "camera" was a Shoeboxoflex (Made in So. Ill.) with a Rollicon (TP) lens. The tripod was a Quickset Champ borrowed from Les Boone, my father and the photographer for this particular photo. The "firm support" I received from my father is probably why I treasure the Quickset Husky I currently use for much of my photography. If I remember correctly, the film I was using at the time was Tri-2 (Three-ring binder paper with a #2 lead pencil).
The exposure was unrecorded.
Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls !
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