I am a retired Washington, DC attorney who has enjoyed photography since the age of six when I received a Kodak Brownie for my birthday. I pursued my interest in photography in college, but disliked the chemical darkroom, and was unsatisfied with traditional color prints which never, in my opinion, equaled the rich tonality of black-and-white prints, nor the luminosity of slide transparencies.

In 1998, I discovered the digital darkroom (Photoshop) which requires no chemicals and gives the photographer total personal control of the print. I then renewed my interest in photography, learned digital imaging and printing at courses and seminars at the Corcoran College of Fine Art in Washington, D.C., at the Santa Fe Institute of Photography, and elsewhere.

To some prints I apply only traditional darkroom techniques (cropping, burning and dodging) within Photoshop, others I transform by manipulating elements within the original image.

I currently capture my images with a Canon D-5 using Canon lenses and print most of my images myself using a Canon ink-jet printer, so I can personally control both the manifestation and quality of each print.

Ink-jet prints have a much greater longevity than traditional photographic prints. Research has shown that digital prints will last up to 80-100 years before fading while prints produced in a traditional darkroom last only 10-20 years if displayed.

Nature is my muse. I have always been an outdoor person - hiking, skiing, kayaking and canoeing - which I have relished not only for the exercise, but also for the vistas both small and grand which nature presents when one spends a whole day outdoors. I have also enjoyed impressionist and abstract art from an early age, and never missed an opportunity to spend time in a great museum. The rhythm, color, hues, harmony and eye-catching dissonant in Western Art of the 20th Century has also awed and inspired me.

I am currently working on a series of macro natural plant images and water reflections which are in essence abstracts snatched from nature.

For me, the Russian painter, Marc Chagall, said it best "art is the unceasing effort to compete with the beauty of flowers and never succeeding."