I can thank my father for instilling in me, as a very young boy, the joy of being out in nature. He loved walks in the woods and on beaches, hikes in the mountains, skiing, body surfing and fishing. We didn’t just walk in the woods or hike in the mountains we looked, we saw, we took it all in. My dad also put a camera in my hand when I was maybe 6 years old, a Kodak Brownie Box camera. In the 1950s he had a Leica and shot exclusively on Kodachrome color slide film, his photographs from then are as clear and colorful as the day they came back from the camera shop developed. It took a few years and an upgrade in camera for me but I eventually matched my love of ‘taking pictures’ with my love of the great outdoors. Through photography I began to look more deeply at the world around me. Even without my camera in my hand ‘hunting’ for a subject and how to compose it, photography has made me a better observer. Following a snowstorm that leaves very cold, dry snow on surfaces, wind shakes leaves and tiny avalanches of snow fall through the trees. Caught in the right light it is a pretty and interesting sight.
