About

I am fortunate to have lived a wonderful and adventurous life. I was born in Ceylon, a beautiful exotic island country awash in color and surrounded by jungle, that is now known as Sri Lanka.   My father was of British and French descent and my mother was Dutch.  Both sides of my family had lived in Ceylon for more than nine generations prior to my birth. Due to the political situation of the island at that time, as well as an uncertain future for his children, my father made the decision to send me off to Australia. I travelled by ship from Colombo to Brisbane, with my Grandmother and three Aunts at the age of 14. My simplistic island life in the East changed forever when that P&O ocean liner, The Orient, sailed out of the harbor from Colombo, Ceylon!

I arrived in Australia in 1958, obtained citizenship, finished my schooling and served two years in the Australian Army during the time of the Vietnam conflict. In 1968 I saw a movie called “The Endless Summer” by Bruce Brown. This movie was a popular surf film that followed two American surfers, Mike Hynson and Robert August, in their worldwide quest to follow the summer around the world, making it endless. I was transfixed watching footage of that ‘perfect wave’ in Cape St Francis, South Africa. For me, having honorably completed my service in the Australian Army – my destiny was revealed.  I would star in my own quest and within a couple of months a close friend of mine and I were surfing in Cape St. Francis, South Africa.

I had officially become a citizen of the world.   For the next four years I lived, worked, and surfed in South Africa, England, France and Spain.  I arrived in America in 1972 at the invitation of my beloved Great Aunt Blanch. She hosted me in her home in Laguna Beach, California, another wonderful surfing destination, and I have called this beautiful country home ever since. I maintain dual citizenship, Australian and American, and to this day regularly visit my closest family and dearest friends in Australia.

I was first introduced to photography by my father in Ceylon. He had a great love for the ocean, an affection I clearly shared with him, and he had a passion for producing black and white images in his crude dark room in our modest home.  Even today, I can vividly recall the sights and pungent smells of watching him reveal his black and white images on a piece of paper by immersing it in a tray of development liquid – my father, the alchemist.  For me, there has always been magic in a camera. My barefoot childhood spent next to the sea, swimming, fishing, taking photos with my father, instilled a great appreciation and affinity for nature, the ocean, and its constantly changing light and movement.  My photography began there in Ceylon on the beaches with my father.  My efforts to capture in images the reverence I feel for the beauty and colors of this physical world continues to this day.

My working life as a business consultant took me around the world. Now, fully retired, I am fortunate to have the ability to indulge my passion for photography.  The challenge of this activity is to make my digital image reflect the beauty, color and light that I see in the field.  I am dedicated to the acquisition of whatever technical proficiency will close the gap between the world my artist’s eye perceives and that which my images present.  It will be a lifelong pursuit and undoubtedly one filled with enough obstacles to satisfy the tortured artist in me for the foreseeable future.  Occasionally I triumph with an image and that joy is my just reward.  When others derive pleasure from these images it is satisfying on a completely different level.  I am grateful for the audience I have collected over the years and appreciate your company and support as I pursue my passion. At this stage of my life, I live to create, and I create to live.

"I go out into the world with my camera and come across something that excites me emotionally, spiritually or aesthetically. I see the image in my mind’s eye. I make the photograph and print it as the equivalent of what I saw and felt." - Ansel Adams

On a technical note, I use Canon EOS Digital Cameras, Canon L Series lenses, Lee & Singh-Ray filters, a Gitzo tripod, and Really Right Stuff ball head.