1, 2, 3

There are three things that turned me onto photography and I wish I had one of them scanned so I could show it to you. But...I will describe it.

One - the really shot pictures my mom had of her family. Through a series of tragedies, my mom lost most of her family when she was young. She only had one picture of her mother, who died in childbirth along with a brother to my mom. And she had a few pictures of her father who abandoned not one, but two separate families before disappearing into the ether of never heard from again. Those old shots taken so long ago intrigued me.

Two - National Geographic. Cheesy, yes I know...but the look of the photographs and the subjects always drew me in. These days I realize my style is nothing like a NG photograph and I certainly am too fond of my creature comforts to live the life these photographers live, but I pay tribute to the influence their photography had on me.

Three - well, you could count it as three and four. Ansel Adams and Annie Leibovitz. Both very different but profound. I saw their images and stopped in my tracks. I wanted to be able to do that - make people stop in their tracks and show them something through my eyes. And, I'm working, stretching and growing. Now, I know that artists of that magnitude are rare...but I've stumbled upon some that inspire me just as much with their photography. I've widened my tastes and found more to be dazzled by.

Photography for me is like the child's bicycle on Christmas morning - always beloved, cherished and shiny new. Always evolving, always pleasing. It takes me to places I want to go, it makes me see things in a new way. And I think it will always be that way.