Hello, and welcome to my gallery!

It seems approriate that I have the opportunity to share this with you on this November 11th, Veteran's Day, since I am a veteran of the U.S. Army.   In fact, I was born at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, DC, just 50 yrs ago.   I grew up in Kensington, Maryland, spending summers at camp in Sherwood Forest, on the Severn River near Annapolis, where my parents still have their home.   I recently retired from the Army after spending most of my career as a medical technologist and clinical laboratory officer, working in Army hospitals around the country and in Germany for three years (I sure wish I had my digital camera back when we traveled all over Europe!).   Now, I live in Chester, Virginia, with my wife, Jane, my 10 yr old son, Jamie, and our three cats, Peppermint, Skittles, and Butterscotch (all sweet like candy).   Here's a view from in front of our house (one of my first panoramas, taken at sunrise one day last spring)...

While I enjoyed all of my "Army adventures" (well, most of them), I am thoroughly enjoying my freedom these days, much of it spent with my new hobby - digital photography. Since I also enjoy tinkering with things electronic and mechanical, my photographic interests led me to a couple of inventions... One is a slave flash trigger circuit that allows me to use my old Olympus flash with my digital camera, and the other is a slide copier attachment. Both actually work and you can take a closer look via the link at the bottom of this page. I recently modified the slide copier, so when I'm not using it for that, it doubles as an LCD hood with magnifying lens for use on those bright sunny days. One of my favorite subjects is animals (maybe because I was born on Groundhog's Day).

My first "exposure" to real photography was almost 30 years ago when I worked as a medical research technician in electron microscopy, where we took photomicrographs on glass plate negatives. We developed them by hand in the darkroom and made 8x10 black and white prints for study and publication (Journal of Cell Biology, July, 1975). A few years later, I purchased my first camera, a 35mm Olympus OM-2, which I have enjoyed for many years, taking mostly color slides (another project will be to digitize them on CD's one day). I eventually lost interest in photography and became tired of the expense and having to deal with those boxes full of slides and prints. My interest was totally renewed however, when I got my first and only (so far) digital camera for my birthday last February, a Nikon Coolpix 800, which I used to take all of the photos you see on this page (some with the help of a Kenko 8x scope).

In closing, I would like to say thanks to Darryl for extending me the invitation to join the wonderful group of photographers here in these galleries at Bestfoto.